In just three years, Huang Songyou took more than $600,000 in bribes, and embezzled another $500,000. And over 30 years in office, he abused his powers in myriad ways, from acquiring vast properties to arranging illicit sexual encounters with minor girls.
Mr. Huang was no ordinary official. For three decades, he served as one of the most influential figures at the top of China's judicial system. That is, until this week, when he was convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to life in jail.
Mr. Huang (52), who served as the vice-president of the country's Supreme Court, is the highest-ranking law official to ever be dismissed on such charges in the People's Republic of China's six-decade history.
His case, which has attracted much attention in China, has underscored the rising corruption problem that has plagued governance in this country, and has, according to political and legal scholars here, begun to threaten the ruling Communist Party's (CPC) legitimacy.
A court in Hebei province, north of Beijing, said in its judgment on Tuesday Mr. Huang had “knowingly violated the law by trading power for money and taking a hefty sum of bribes, which has produced a bad impact on the society”. It called for him to be “punished severely.”
Mr. Huang's dismissal comes as part of a wider crackdown on corruption that the CPC undertook last year to address the problem, which has progressively worsened with rising prosperity since economic reforms were launched three decades ago.
Last year, a record 15 ministerial and provincial-level officials were dismissed on corruption charges.
In September, the CPC Central Committee, its highest decision-making body, in a rare admission admitted that corruption in public offices was “severely harming and weakening” the Party's rule.
Part of the reason for the rise in corruption in the judiciary, scholars say, is a result of reforms that have invested the legal system with more powers. In China, the judicial system does not function with complete independence from the Party, which still sanctions most appointments of high-ranking judicial officials.
The country has, however, recently moved towards granting more powers to the judiciary in the past decade, following commitments to improve the rule of law. “Some power has shifted from the party committee to judicial organs.
But there was a failure to carry out proper monitoring,” said Liu Renwen, a scholar of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in a paper.
Pu Zhiqiang, a leading civil rights lawyer in Beijing, said Mr. Huang's case was far from being uncommon. “Many lawyers have degraded themselves into brokers between judges and parties involved,” he told the Global Times newspaper.
“They are pursuing money or power, and have become parasites of the legal system.” This conviction, he hoped, would arrest the trend.
