Wu Jialin believes that he "treats people sincerely without hypocrisy, dares to tell the truth without concealing his views", and has gone through the vicissitudes of the years and is concerned about the construction of the country's rule of law. From writing the first treatise in New China to systematically propagate the Constitution to introducing logic into the law, he "willingly became a stepping stone for the development of democracy and the implementation of the rule of law."
From now on, the students of Ningxia University will never see the old man who speaks Peking Opera with a Fuzhou accent and speaks logic and jurisprudence.
This old man was the former president of Ningxia University, the outstanding senior jurist in China, and the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Development of Chinese Constitutional Law, who was the first to publish a treatise to systematically publicize the Constitution after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
On May 3, Professor Wu Jialin, one of the important pioneers and main founders of new Chinese constitutional law, witness and important participant in the development of the Constitution of the Republic, and outstanding constitutional law educator, died of illness in Fuzhou at the age of 91.
Born in 1926, Wu Jialin has experienced wars, movements, and reforms, from blackheads to white hair, witnessing the ups and downs of the construction of the legal system in New China, the ups and downs of legal studies and constitutional law, and even the rise and fall of rule of law education in Northwest China.
Court "observer"
Wu Jialin, although a native of Fujian, likes Peking Opera. Xie Hui, a former distinguished professor at Central South University who worked at Ningxia University, recalled that on the campus of Ningxia University, Wu Jialin was often seen humming while walking, and he was thoughtful.
Jiao Hongchang, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, first met Wu Jialin in the Taofen Building of East China University of Political Science and Law, and still remembers especially that "Sir said that Xu (Xu Chongde) and He (He Huahui) were fans of the opera, attending classes during the day and listening to the drama together at night. ”
In June 1926, Wu Jialin was born in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. His father was a graduate of the third phase of the Baoding Military Academy and served as a low-ranking officer in the Kuomintang army. At an early age, after Wu Jialin moved to Xiamen with his parents for three or four years, his father passed away and the family moved back to Fuzhou.
After Japan launched the war of aggression against China, in order to escape the war, most people migrated to northern Fujian, and schools were also relocated to the inland Minqing. Wu Jialin had to go to study alone in other places. Unexpectedly, just after graduating from junior high school, his mother died, and Wu Jialin was forced to interrupt his studies.
After the death of his parents, Wu Jialin lost his source of livelihood and dropped out of school to engage in weights and measures appraisal in Ninghua County, Fujian Province. Two years later, with the financial support of his father's friends at the Baoding Military Academy, Wu Jialin was able to continue his studies and attend Fuzhou Senior High School as a war zone student.
Fuzhou Senior High School is adjacent to the Fujian High Court. Courts are often held and allow the community to observe. One day, out of curiosity, Wu Jialin walked into the courthouse. The impassioned and verbal arguments between the prosecution and the defense in court fascinated him and fell in love with the profession of lawyer.
After graduating from high school in 1947, Wu Jialin, with the financial support of his father's friends, made a special trip to Shanghai to apply for the university, and the law major became the focus of the examination. When the list was issued, he was admitted to Peking University as he wished, entered the law department, and since then, he has formed an indissoluble relationship with law.
While studying at Peking University, Wu Jialin met one of the most important people in his life, his mentor Zhang Zhirang, Shen Junru and other chief lawyers of the "Seven Gentlemen Incident" lawyer group. Zhang Zhirang, in his early years, studied law at Columbia University in the United States and the University of Berlin in Germany, and after returning to China, he served as a judge of the Dali Academy of the Beiyang Government (equivalent to a Supreme Court judge), and later served as the president of Fudan University.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhang Zhirang served as vice president of the Supreme People's Court, participated in the formulation of the "May Fourth Constitution", and taught constitutional law and new philosophy classes at the Law Department of Peking University. At that time, Wu Jialin served as a representative of the constitutional law study class and had a lot of contact with Mr. Zhang Zhirang.
Zhang Zhirang's profound knowledge and eloquence deeply attracted the students. Wu Jialin was also appreciated by Zhang Zhirang because of his intelligence and studiousness. With Zhang's support, Wu Jialin organized a constitutional law research group among his classmates, with himself as the leader.
The group focused on Chinese and foreign constitutional issues, which greatly deepened Wu Jialin's interest in constitutional law, so much so that when he entered the law department of Chinese Min University after graduating from Peking University as a graduate student, he did not hesitate to pursue a major in state law (constitutional law).
"Famous in Beijing"
In 1951, Wu Jialin graduated from the Law Department of Peking University and was selected to study in the postgraduate class of the Law Department of Chinese Min University. At the end of the same year, due to the needs of his work, he was transferred to the National Law Teaching and Research Department of the Law Department of Chinese University to teach, and served as the leader of the teaching and research team, mainly teaching constitutional law.
In 1954, the first batch of national evaluations for the title of teachers in colleges and universities, Wu Jialin was rated as a lecturer. In the same year, the first plenary session of the First National People's Congress adopted the first constitution of New China, known in history as the "May Fourth Constitution".
Keenly aware of the importance of popularizing constitutional education, Wu Jialin picked up the lamp to read at night, worked hard to write a book, and published the first treatise of his life, "Speech on the Basic Knowledge of the Constitution", before the official promulgation of the new Constitution, actively publicizing the spirit and significance of the new Constitution.
The basic methods of constitutional concepts and analysis of constitutional issues proposed in the book lay the basic nature and characteristics of the "Chinese-style constitutional concept". It is worth mentioning that Wu Jialin has noticed the important practical significance of the implementation of the Constitution in the book, "Our responsibility is not only to participate in the formulation of the Constitution, but also to use the actual actions and work of each individual to ensure the implementation of the Constitution after it is formally formulated." ”
These forward-looking academic ideas have been maintained and developed in Wu Jialin's post-thoughts, and they still have important academic value today. Published by China Youth Publishing House, the book "Speech on the Basic Knowledge of the Constitution" was printed and distributed in 900,000 copies, which was well received by readers and had a major academic impact throughout the country.
Han Dayuan, a professor at the Law School of Chinese Min University, once wrote an article commenting that this is the first work in New China to systematically publicize the new Constitution, and it is also a basic reading of the Constitution. Constitutional law scholar Xu Chongde commented that Wu Jialin "wrote his first new book in 1954, publicizing the Constitution and marketing hundreds of thousands of copies in China." Newspapers and periodicals, contributors followed the way" "The literature spread far and wide, and the fame of the capital" was famous.
At that time, Wu Jialin was full of hope for the establishment of a rule-of-law country, and he shouted: "Now the sunshine of democracy and the rule of law has shone out, and the kingdom of reason has begun to emerge." On May 1, 1956, Wu Jialin and his student Tang Cuifang were happily married. A year after marriage, they lived happily and peacefully.
Wu Jialin once made a short comment on his own way of dealing with the world: "Act conscientiously and diligently, act with dignity and integrity, and act innocently; treat others sincerely without hypocrisy, dare to tell the truth without concealing opinions; go straight without bending the corners, speak bluntly without swallowing and spitting." But he did not expect that the happy life of the whole family would be ruined by his own words.
On May 27, 1957, Wu Jialin was invited to attend a forum held by the China Political Law Society to solicit opinions, and spoke at the meeting. Who knows, "With this statement, great calamity is coming."
According to the People's Daily, published on May 29, 1957, Wu Jialin talked about three issues in his speech: first, problems in the political system; second, problems in the legal system; and third, four suggestive opinions to the leaders of the Political Science Association.
But Wu Jialin "did not expect a storm to begin." About ten days after he spoke, he was beaten to the right and assigned to work on the Nanyuan farm in Beijing. Mrs. Tang Cuifang was implicated in this and was assigned to work in the Ningxia Machinery Industry Bureau after graduation.
After the rightists removed their hats in 1961, Wu Jialin was assigned to teach at Ningxia University, where he taught formal logic, the history of philosophy, and the writing of expository texts. This went for more than 30 years, until the end of the 1990s, officially retired, due to poor health, returned to his hometown of Fuzhou.
Although Wu Jialin was forced by the situation at that time to temporarily leave the legal profession, he was "in the world of logic and concerned about the legal world." As his student Tuo Chengxiang said, "Professor Wu has taught us courses such as constitutional law, criminal procedure law, and formal logic" "He is knowledgeable, proficient in law and other disciplines, with funny and humorous lectures, strong storytelling appeal, and listening to his lectures is definitely a pleasure."
Associate Professor Zhang Tongming, a student of Wu Jialin and now teaching at the School of Political Science and Law of Ningxia University, also said: "In the past, logic felt dry and boring, but Mr. Wu made logic become affinity. He has made great contributions to the popularization of logic, and it can be said that he was the first to open up the atmosphere. ”
Back in constitutional circles
After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, the spring of the legal circles has come. In 1979, Wu Jialin's misclassification as a "rightist" was corrected, and he was promoted to associate professor and appointed vice president of Ningxia University, where he resumed teaching and research on constitutional law after more than 20 years of interruption.
"I can return to the constitutional world first of all to thank my good friend Mr. Wang Mincan." Wu Jialin said that after the resumption of enrollment in colleges and universities, law school departments have resumed classes or rebuilt, and law textbooks are urgently needed. At that time, Wang Mincan presided over the editing of the law textbooks of the Ministry of Justice, and entrusted Wu Jialin to edit the textbook of Constitutional Law. Through the compilation of legal textbooks, Wu Jialin returned to the team with a righteous name.
After the reform and opening up, Wu Jialin entered a bumper period of creation, and successively published monographs such as "Logic in Stories", "Case Solving and Logic", "Legal Logic", and co-authored "Introduction to Theoretical Literature" and "Interesting Discussion with Middle School Students" (won the third prize of the Sixth Ningxia Social Science Outstanding Achievement Award) in cooperation with his lover Tang Cuifang.
Among them, the higher legal textbook "Legal Logic" edited by Wu Jialin explicitly uses the professional name of "legal logic" for the first time. Since then, the law departments and political science and law schools of various universities in China have generally opened "legal logic" courses, and various sub-disciplines of legal logic have gradually been established, such as trial logic, defense logic, and investigation logic.
The "Yearbook of Chinese Philosophy (1984)" commented on the book that it systematically expounds the basic principles of traditional logic, links the practice of legal work, and conducts a more systematic analysis and generalization of logical problems in investigation, prosecution, and trial work, so as to provide traditional logical methods for legal research and legal work. The book was later reprinted several times, and was also reprinted and published by Taiwan's Wunan Book Publishing Company.
In 1982, when the state revised the Constitution, Wu Jialin published articles in the Journal of Ningxia University and Democracy and the Legal System to publicize the content and spirit of the draft new constitution and put forward his own opinions and understanding of the new draft constitution. For example, he proposed that the implementation of the Constitution should be guaranteed and that there must be provisions that can be implemented" and "if there is no law to follow, it is better not to be able to do so."
After the promulgation of the "1982 Constitution", scholars conducted a comprehensive and meticulous discussion on the introduction and interpretation of the new Constitution. Wang Mincan, who was in charge of the editorial department of the law textbooks of the Ministry of Justice, approached Wu Jialin and entrusted him to edit the constitutional law textbooks. In February 1983, Wu Jialin edited the higher law textbook "Constitutional Law" published by the Mass Publishing House.
This book is the first textbook on constitutional law issued after the promulgation of the new Constitution of our country, and it has had a major impact. Zhu Fuhui, a professor at the Law School of Xiamen University, found that it has been used as a general textbook for colleges and universities across the country for a long time, and its system content and arrangement mode have become an important model for all kinds of constitutional law textbooks in the future. Later, the book won the first prize of the Second Ningxia Social Science Outstanding Achievement Award.
In 1983, Wu Jialin was appointed president of Ningxia University, and he had to face the pressures and challenges of administrative work and social affairs, as well as the preparation of grand and arduous textbooks on constitutional law. But this did not affect his creative enthusiasm.
From his comeback to 1996, Wu Jialin published more than 100 papers, published 10 monographs, and achieved fruitful results in the fields of constitutional law, legal logic, law, and political science.
For his outstanding contributions in the field of legal research, in 1984, Wu Jialin was awarded the title of young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions at the national level, and was promoted to professor in 1985. On the occasion of the 6th anniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution in 1988, he published an article entitled "How to Turn a Constitution on Paper into a Realistic Constitution" at the request of the People's Daily, proposing to turn the "Constitution on Paper" into a "Realistic Constitution".
Since then, Wu Jialin has written an article entitled "On the Necessity and Possibility of Establishing Constitutional Supervision Bodies", calling for the establishment of a constitutional supervision committee under the National People's Congress as a special constitutional supervision body to ensure the implementation of the Constitution in view of the fact that there are a number of deficiencies in the constitutional guarantee mechanism in Our country that is currently supervised by the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee, and it is necessary to set up a Constitutional Supervision Committee under the National People's Congress as a special constitutional supervision body to ensure the implementation of the Constitution.
Han Dayuan said: Wu Jialin's contribution to the development of constitutional law in New China is multifaceted and multifaceted. He not only made due academic contributions to the search for a reasonable historical positioning of New Chinese Constitutional Law, but also "put forward the New Chinese Constitutional Law System with a keen academic vision", which cultivated a large number of talents for the development of New Chinese Constitutional Law.
Sun Xiaoxia, a professor at Fudan University Law School, said that Wu Jialin had two special contributions in constitutional law: he cleared the influence of political ultra-leftist thought on constitutional law, and reduced the unavoidable leftist, left-loving, and left-guarding ideas of constitutional law itself at that time to a minimum. He has three spirits: independence, integrity, and insight; he has three titles: Constitutional Law Master, Master of Language, and Intellectual.
Mo Jihong, a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that Wu Jialin's academic thinking on constitutional law represents a historical stage in the development of Chinese constitutional law. "For a considerable period of time, the constitutional law circles have called Elder Wu's constitutional scholarly thinking 'Wu Jialin Constitutional law', which is an affirmation of Mr. Wu's academic thinking and a praise for Elder Wu's contribution to the development of constitutional law in our country."
In September 2012, Wu Jialin was awarded the title of "National Outstanding Senior Jurist" by the China Law Society, and in October 2015, he was awarded the "Lifetime Achievement Award for the Development of Chinese Constitutional Law" by the Chinese Constitutional Law Research Association. On May 3, 2017, the Law School of Chinese University said in the "Condolence Telegram" that the death of Professor Wu Jialin is a huge loss to China's constitutional law academic circles and China's legal research and education.
On May 5, 2017, the Ningxia Law Society said in the "Condolence Telegram" that Wu Jialin "made outstanding contributions to the creation and development of Ningxia's education, rule of law construction and even legal research in ningxia during his thirty years of working in Ningxia, which will forever be recorded in the annals of Ningxia". Xie Hui said that from Beijing to Ningxia, Wu Jialin "although he lost his teaching position at the National People's Congress, he made great contributions to the development of legal education in Ningxia and even the entire northwest." ”
Du Lifu, a student of Wu Jialin and a professor at Fujian Normal University, said that Mr. Wu "has worked very hard and fulfilled in his life." As a student of his, I am really glad that the Anti-Rightist Movement exiled him to ningxia, the northwestern frontier. Although this is unfortunate for him, it is really fortunate for me and our students born in Ningxia! "Without his years in Ningxia, there would be no growth for us!"
Wu Jialin once said: "Advocating and shouting for the cause of democracy and the rule of law in the People's Republic, and willingly being the stepping stone for developing democracy and enforcing the rule of law, this is my lifelong wish and my lifelong cause." ”
But the Si people have passed away, Jiao Hongchang, Xie Hui and other students can no longer wait for the "good drama" behind the scenes that Mr. Ningxia said, and the students in Ningxia will no longer see Mr. Ji who sings "Farewell to the Overlord, Borrow Arrows from Grass Boats".