Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 19, 2019 Comrade Xiao Yang, an outstanding member of the Communist Party of China, a loyal communist fighter, an outstanding leader of China's political and legal front, and former president of the Supreme People's Court, died of illness in Beijing at 4:58 on April 19, 2019 at the age of 81.
Xiao Yang was born in August 1938, joined the Communist Party of China in May 1966, and graduated from the Law Department of Chinese Min University. He has worked in the field of procuratorial law for a long time, serving as deputy chief procurator and chief procurator of the People's Procuratorate of Guangdong Province, deputy procurator general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, minister of justice, and president of the Supreme People's Court since 1998, leaving office in 2008 after two terms of office 10 years later.
Xiao Yang was a member of the 15th and 16th Central Committees.
"The ignorant cannot be judges, the incompetent cannot be judges, and the immoral cannot be judges." Xiao Yang's "quotation" was widely disseminated. He was called "a chief justice with a civilian complex, a bold judicial reformer, and a vigorous contemporary jurist." ”
According to Legal Daily, Xiao Yang began an early exploration of the reform of the anti-corruption system, led the creation of China's first whistleblowing center, the Anti-Corruption Bureau, and advocated the formulation and participation in the drafting of a special anti-corruption and bribery law. During the period of presiding over the work of the Ministry of Justice, he suggested that he hold lectures on the legal system for the central leaders, suggested that the central authorities implement the rule of law and build a socialist country ruled by law; reform the lawyer system and the prison system, create a legal aid system, and promote the promulgation of China's first lawyers' law and prison law. During the work of the Supreme People's Court, "fairness and efficiency" were taken as the theme of the court's work, with the goal of building a fair, efficient and authoritative socialist judicial system with Chinese characteristics in accordance with constitutional principles, the judicial system was systematically reformed, the direction of the construction of the professionalization of judges was proposed, and the central government was suggested to propose a criminal policy of "blending leniency with severity" and reform the death penalty approval system.
As early as the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2003, he said: "I tell everyone without concealment that it is difficult to bring a contingent of judges, which is the most headache I feel now, and some judges are not of high quality and are not competent for increasingly professional trials." During his term of office, Xiao Yang vigorously promoted the professional construction of judges, so that judges can try independently.
In January 2007, Xiao Yang said during a survey in Shandong, "When I was the dean, there were two things that made me worry about my stomach, worry, and sleep, one was not to do the wrong case and kill the wrong person, and the other was not to have problems with the team." ”
In January 2008, xiao Yang said about how to be a good justice, "Only when the law is in the hands of judges with a sense of justice, can the principle of equality before the law be clearly visible, fairness and justice can be shared by everyone, evil can be stopped, contradictions can be resolved, society can be harmonious, and the law can become the law in reality and become the measure of facts and justice." Practice has proved that without realistic legal justice and without judges who understand the great righteousness and have high moral integrity, the people will not benefit, but will be harmed or even harmed. “
During Xiao Yang's term of office, the Supreme Court withdrew the right to review the death penalty. He once said: "The bumpy experience of the death penalty approval system is generally related to the uneven course that our country has traveled, and is determined by the objective conditions of political, economic and social development in a specific historical period. ”
Xiao Yang believes that the decentralization of the right to review the death penalty has played a positive role in maintaining public order and stability and ensuring the smooth development of reform, opening up, and economic construction, "but this practice itself does have contradictions and problems that are difficult to overcome such as systems and mechanisms."
In the winter of 2005, Xiao Yang presided over the "East Lake Conference" in Wuhan, Hubei Province, with only one theme: withdrawing the right to review the death penalty. According to reports, the opening of the meeting was very special, Xiao Yang presided over and asked questions, and the criminal law scholars Ma Chang, Wang Zuofu, Zhao Bingzhi, and Chen Xingliang, and the criminal procedure law scholars Chen Guangzhong, Fan Chongyi, Chen Weidong, and Long Zongzhi, who attended the meeting, spoke and answered one by one, unanimously supporting the recovery of the right to review the death penalty. Also present at that time were all the vice presidents of the Supreme Court, the presidents of the criminal divisions, the directors of the research offices, and the secretaries of the political and legal committees of the Hubei Provincial CPC Committee and the president of the provincial high court, but they did not speak the whole time. Chen Weidong once recalled that xiao Yang made a big decision to plan this expert seminar.
The October 2006 Law on the Organization of Courts amended to stipulate that "the death penalty shall be submitted to the Supreme People's Court for approval, except where the death penalty is decided by the Supreme People's Court in accordance with law." In December, Xiao Yang announced at the Supreme Court's Congress of Criminal Judges that the unified exercise of the right to review death penalty cases from January 1, 2007, was "basically ready."
At the Two Sessions of the National People's Congress in March 2007, Xiao Yang was interviewed by the media about the trial of Lai Changxing. Xiao Yang said, "Lai Changxing, as the first offender in the Xiamen Yuanhua case, committed a very serious crime. But now that we're going to repatriate him to China, we have a very important problem, and Canada is a country that abolishes the death penalty. Canada has a provision that ——— countries that have been repatriated or extradited retain the death penalty and may be executed, it will not be extradited or repatriated. In view of this situation, the Supreme People's Court Adjudication Committee decided, after discussion, not to sentence Lai Changxing to death. The death penalty includes both summary execution and a two-year suspension of execution. Lai Changxing's repatriation to China will not be sentenced to death immediately, nor will it be sentenced to a two-year suspension of execution. “
On July 23, 2011, Lai was repatriated to China. On May 18, 2012, Lai Changxing was sentenced to life imprisonment and confiscated all personal property, but Lai Changxing did not appeal.
In the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2008, because Xiao Yang was about to step down, he attracted much attention. At that time, when he attended the guangdong youth league plenary meeting, he recalled his 10 years of experience in the Supreme People's Court, and he said that he deeply felt "cherished and honored.".
Xiao Yang frankly said that he came to Guangdong to listen to the meeting on his own initiative and applied to the secretariat of the conference. "When I look back on the 70 years of life, I have mixed feelings. From a rural teenager to the chief justice of the Republic, I am very grateful to the party for cultivating and educating me, and I am also very grateful to the people of the whole country, especially the people of Guangdong, for their help, support and trust in me. Xiao Yang said that from 1990 when he was transferred from Guangdong to Beijing, from the Supreme People's Procuratorate to the Ministry of Justice, and then to the Supreme People's Court, his 18 years of working in Beijing have made him fortunate to witness many major historical events in the country and to see the continuous progress of China's democratic and legal system construction." I am pleased to be able to participate in it and to contribute a little, and in particular I cherish and honor the opportunity to report to the people of the nation on the work of the people's courts in the last 10 years."
At that time, the media published photos of Xiao Yang laughing in the Guangdong delegation, which was widely disseminated.
After the end of the two sessions of the National People's Congress, Xiao Yang stepped down as president of the Supreme Court. According to reports, at the meeting of leading cadres at that time, Xiao Yang said emotionally: "Leaving my post at the end of my term of office, having reached the age of seventy, and leaving my post in good physical and mental health is a matter of joy and honor, and I am deeply in a good mood and very pleased."
After retiring in 2008, he was still studying the theory of the rule of law and promoting the spirit of the rule of law. In a speech at his alma mater, Chinese Min University, he called himself an "old man with a legal idiot." Xiao Yang said, "My dream of law is still there, and my dream of the rule of law is still there!"
In 2012, Xiao Yang published a new book, "Xiao Yang's Collected Essays on the Rule of Law", which talked about judicial corruption. In Xiao Yang's view, the phenomenon of corruption in the judicial field cannot be tolerated, but in the final analysis, the corruption of power in the judicial field and other corruption of public power have commonalities, that is, they all stem from the scarcity of power, the arbitrariness of the exercise of power, and the defectiveness of the system.
Xiao Yang said that in order to solve these problems, the Supreme Court has taken a number of measures and has not stopped efforts in this regard. For example, the comprehensive implementation of the open trial system, the prevention of black-box operations, the launching of the activity of evaluating and creating models, the conduct of judicial inspections, the establishment and persistence of the system of pursuing responsibility for illegal trials, the strengthening of the system of punishment for judges, the promulgation of regulations regulating the relationship between judges and lawyers, and the implementation of off-site exchanges among the presidents of high courts are all centered on this effort.
Last year, Xiao Yang published an article entitled "Witnessing 40 Years of Rule of Law in China" in the China Law Review, which is in charge of the Ministry of Justice.
"As a legal person trained in the early days of New China, I had the privilege of engaging in public security, procuratorate, judicial administration and trial work under the leadership of the party, and witnessed and personally experienced the great changes in this national governance model. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of reform and opening up, looking back at the stormy road of the rule of law, I deeply felt that the achievements of reform were not easy to achieve, and I also felt that the task of future development was heavy and long, so I was invited by the "China Law Review" to write a text as a memorial. ”
Xiao Yang wrote in the article: "Although the change from 'legal system' to 'rule of law' is only a one-word difference, it is a major change in concept, marking China's pursuit of the rule of law from obscurity to maturity and consciousness, a major development of the party's leadership style, ruling style, and governing strategy, a rejection of the tradition of 'rule by man' over the past thousand years, a perfection of China's socialist democratic politics and legal system construction, and the opening of the road of exploration for China's modern rule of law." ”
Xiao Yang resume
Xiao Yang, male, Han ethnicity, born in August 1938, Heyuan, Guangdong, joined the Communist Party of China in May 1966, joined the work in January 1962, graduated from the Law Department of Chinese Min University, university degree, chief justice.
From 1957 to 1962, he studied law at Chinese University.
From January to August 1962, he was a teacher at the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Political science and law cadre school;
From 1962 to 1969, he was a cadre of the Public Security Bureau of Qujiang County, Guangdong Province;
From 1969 to 1975, he was the officer of the Propaganda Department of the Qujiang County Party Committee of Guangdong Province, the office officer and deputy director of the county party committee;
From 1975 to 1981, he was the Secretary of the Party Committee of Longgui Commune, Qujiang County, Guangdong Province, a member of the Standing Committee of the County Committee and the Director of the Office;
From 1981 to 1983, he was the Secretary of the Party Committee of Wujiang District, Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province, and the Deputy Secretary of the Qingyuan Prefectural Committee;
From 1983 to 1986, he was deputy chief procurator and deputy secretary of the party group of the People's Procuratorate of Guangdong Province;
From 1986 to 1990, he was the chief procurator and secretary of the party group of the People's Procuratorate of Guangdong Province;
From 1990 to 1992, he was deputy chief procurator of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, member of the Party Leading Group, and member of the Procuratorial Committee;
From 1992 to 1993, he was deputy chief procurator, deputy secretary of the party leading group, and member of the procuratorial committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate;
Minister of Justice and Secretary of the Party Group from 1993 to 1998;
From 1998 to 2008, he was the president of the Supreme People's Court, the secretary of the party leading group, and a member of the adjudication committee.
He is a member of the 15th and 16th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China.