Tag Archives: political

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Post-80s judge ‘battle-hardened’ against corrupt officials

Jiang Wei.[Photo/Official Weibo account of Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court] 

When talking about open trials of cases involving corrupt officials, Jiang Wei, a post-80s judge from a court in Beijing has had more experiences than almost anybody else.

After graduation from Tsinghua University’s School of Law with master’s degree in 2005, Jiang joined Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court and later became a criminal court judge, according to Beijing Evening News.

In 2014, he was appointed as the vice-presiding judge of the court’s No 2 Criminal Tribunal, as he was one of the youngest and brightest judges in the country’s judicial system.

In the nationwide fight against corruption launched in 2012, the fall of two “big tigers”, or high-ranking officials, impressed him the most.

One was Tian Xueren, former deputy governor of Jilin province, who was in 2013 charged with receiving 85 bribes worth more than 19 million yuan ($3.1 million) from 1995 to 2011.

Jiang Wei still remembers the morning of Nov 1, when he was sitting across Tian Xueren at the courtroom of No 2 Criminal Tribunal. As the presiding judge of the trial, he announced the judgment in a strong voice that Tian Xueren was sentenced to life imprisonment, deprived him of political rights for life, along with the confiscation of the money he received in bribes. Tian pleaded guilty and didn’t appeal to a higher court.

On July 17, 2014, at the same court, Jiang Wei announced another significant verdict: Wang Suyi, former head of the United Front Work Department in the Party’s Inner Mongolia committee, was sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting bribes. He was accused of taking bribes worth more than 10.73 million yuan ($1.71 million). Like Tian, Wang didn’t appeal to a higher court.

Facing the “big tigers”, Jiang admits sentencing the “big tigers” was a high pressure job as he had to make sure that the judgment was as fair as possible.

“Sometimes it’s like a contest between you and the defendants,” Jiang Wei said. When referring to Wang Suyi, Jiang said during the first arraignment, he told Wang that it’s him who made Tian Xueren’s verdict last year, “When they know you’re an experienced judge, they will respect and cooperate with you better.” Jiang said.

Jiang has so far handled a dozen of corruption cases concerning ministerial-level officials, with the highest illicit money from a case reaching over 20 million yuan ($3 million).

“The proceeding of criminal cases usually take seven or eight months, not counting some cases with several supplement investigation,” Jiang said. Unlike the civil cases, criminal cases involving corruption and delinquency are more complicated and time-consuming.

In addition, Jiang has dealt with several major white-collar crime cases involving real estate, commerce, internet, among which the highest value of case recorded was 396 million yuan ($57.7 million).

“In general, a copy of the written judgment contains 20,000 to 30,000 words, and needs at least four or five revisions.” Jiang said. “Even a tiny mistake in high-profile cases can have major consequences.” he said.

Over the last couple of years, Jiang has dealt with more than 140 cases, and not a single lawsuit or complaint has been filed in any case.

“I like being a judge; it’s a mentally challenging work.” A competent judge must work hard and make decisions after serious considerations.

“When I became a judge 10 years ago, I decided to devote myself to this job.” Jiang said.

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Shenzhen uses tech to stop jaywalking

A display screen is set up at the crossroad near the Liuxian Primary School. [Photo/sina.cn] 

Shenzhen police have set up an intelligent system to stop pedestrians from jaywalking. Violators will be recorded by the country’s personal credit system.

The high-tech system created by traffic police of Nanshan District consists of several parts, including a video collector, controller, display screen, turnstile, front-end computer and voice broadcast system.

A turnstile is part of the intelligent system created by Nanshan traffic police. [Photo/sina.cn] 

When the red light is on, turnstiles will be closed, and the voice broadcast will remind pedestrians to stop and wait. If anyone forces their way through the turnstiles, his or her face will be captured by the CCTV and the violation will be recorded in the social credit system.

According to a local police officer, the system can also change the rotation intervals of the turnstile based on computation, which will provide more convenience for pedestrians, especially aged and disabled people.

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Shop prices down again, disposable income up

Yesterday the BRC published its latest shop prices index. Over the last year prices are down by 1%. This is a smaller fall than recent figures, but shows there is still fierce competition on the High Street and on the internet, with the overall balance of prices under good control.

Asda also published its latest disposable income tracker. This showed disposable income up by 3.5% over the last year. All this has happened at a time when oil prices have risen sharply, with a big effect on domestic fuel and vehicle fuel. Fuels are up 17% over the last year, and are the main force behind the rises in the CPI and the RPI.

I was expecting further rises in inflation as the rise in world commodity prices flows through, and as we get further rises in electricity, services with a large wage component, and the usual local and national government increases in fees and charges. So far UK inflation has been running in parallel to German and US inflation, which have also risen rapidly from a very low base mainly owing to fuel prices.

Lots of forecasters are still refusing to look at the figures that are coming out. Many still say there will be a sharp rise in prices from lower sterling, which they wrongly think has mainly occurred after the referendum vote instead of before. This they think will then remove all real growth in incomes and weaken the economy.  They are overdoing the gloom.

The property valuers have some explaining to do. They have been warning of immediate post referendum declines in City offices. Yesterday British Land announced it has sold the Cheesegrater, a large modern well let City office block, for £1.15bn, which is 25% above the September 2016 valuation! The yield is only 3.4% on the good rents signed up.  Will we have some apologies over all that red ink they spilled last summer?

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Financial speculation led to unsustainable global housing crisis, UN expert says

2 March 2017 – The world’s money markets have priced people out of cities, a United Nations independent expert has said, blaming financial markets and speculators for treating housing as a &#8220place to park capital.&#8221

&#8220Housing has lost its social function and is seen instead as a vehicle for wealth and asset growth. It has become a financial commodity, robbed of its connection to community, dignity and the idea of home,&#8221 said Leilani Farha, the Special Rapporteur on the right to housing.

Her latest report, which Ms. Farha presented today to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, examines how housing has become a repository for global capital, and the impact that commodification has had on affordability of housing and homelessness.

The total value of the global housing market is a staggering $163 trillion, the UN expert said, the equivalent of more than twice the world’s total economy.

&#8220The financial world has essentially operated without any consideration of housing as a human right and States are complicit: they have supported financial markets in a way that has made housing unaffordable for most residents,&#8221 Ms. Farha said.

Her report recommends stronger rights-based frameworks both domestically and internationally to address the problem. It suggests that States must regulate private actors not simply to prevent blatant violations of human rights but also to ensure that their actions are consistent with the obligation to realize housing as a human right for all.

In London, for instance, developers have not been scared off by the social housing requirement, Ms. Farha said in her statement, while in Vancouver, vacant homes face a one per cent tax levy which is intended to contribute to low-income accommodation.

&#8220This is an issue of accountability,&#8221 she says. &#8220Government accountability to international human rights obligations has been replaced with accountability to markets and investors.&#8221

Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

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UN envoy condemns firing of rocket from Gaza towards Israel

2 March 2017 – Condemning a rocket fired from Gaza towards Israel, a senior United Nations envoy has called on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and avoid escalation of the situation.

&#8220Such provocations seek only to undermine peace,&#8221 said Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process in a statement today.

According to the statement, the rocket fired yesterday was third such incident in the past 30 days after a period of almost four months of quiet.

&#8220I call on all responsible parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid escalation and prevent incidents that jeopardize the lives of Palestinians and Israelis,&#8221 urged Mr. Mladenov.

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