Chu Chaoxin/Text, originally published on the public account “Yizhe Chu”.
Recently, the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court was “slapped in the face” by a lawyer.
According to Southern Weekend, on September 20, 2024, lawyer Zeng Wu, who had just finished a court session at the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court, was summoned by the local public security authorities.
The reason for the Luoyang police summoning lawyer Zeng Wu was: Zeng Wu and other defense lawyers discovered that signal jammers had been installed in the courtroom of the court and raised objections in court. During the recess, Zeng Wu and others also saw that jammers were also installed in the lawyer’s rest area and restrooms. When turning off the second jammer, Zeng Wu accidentally knocked the jammer down, and the Luoyang Intermediate Court Litigation Service Center immediately reported to the police that Zeng Wu intentionally damaged property.
Zeng Wu was verbally informed by the Luoyang police that he was to be administratively detained for 5 days, while the intern lawyer Ji Tai, who reminded him when he turned off the second jammer that “you can use your phone to touch the switch if you can’t reach it”, has been given a penalty of administrative detention for 5 days, with a stay of execution.
The administrative punishment of Zeng Wu and others for knocking down the jammers in the court has sparked widespread social attention and discussion regarding the correctness of its application of law.
Some experts pointed out that Article 6 of the “Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Radio Management” clearly stipulates that “any unit or individual shall not use radio frequencies without authorization, and shall not cause harmful interference to radio businesses carried out in accordance with the law”. Articles 14 and 27 of the Regulations further stipulate that the use of radio frequencies and the establishment of radio stations shall obtain permission.
Therefore, whether the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court has been approved to use jammers has become an important prerequisite for whether lawyers like Zeng Wu can be administratively punished. If the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court is approved to use jammers, then the lawyers should not arbitrarily interfere with the court’s use of jammers; if the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court has not been approved and has used jammers without authorization, then the court is suspected of illegally using jammers.
Lawyer Lu Yijie keenly noticed this key point, so he applied to the Henan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology for information disclosure, requesting to inquire whether the department had authorized the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court to use jammers.
On September 30, the Henan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology replied to Lu Yijie, “The permission document for your application to disclose the radio management agency to allow the Luoyang Intermediate People’s (Civil) Court to use radio frequencies and mobile phone signal jammers from September 20 to December 20, 2024, does not exist”.
It is very clear that the radio management agency of Henan Province has not issued a document allowing the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court to use jammers. Then, the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court’s unauthorized use of jammers violates the “Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Radio Management”.
Article 73 of the Regulations stipulates: Those who violate the provisions of these Regulations and use radio transmitting equipment or non-radio equipment that radiates radio waves to interfere with the normal conduct of radio business shall be ordered to correct by the radio management agency. If they refuse to correct, the equipment that produces harmful interference shall be confiscated, and a fine of not less than 50,000 yuan but not more than 200,000 yuan shall be imposed.
So, Zeng Wu and others attempted to shut down the signal jammers that the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court had installed without authorization. This was not intentional damage to property, but rather an attempt to stop the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court from violating the regulations. They should not only not be subject to administrative punishment, but should also be rewarded and affirmed.
Lu Yijie used the method of applying for information disclosure to expose the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court’s illegal use of mobile phone signal jammers. It was straightforward, direct, and powerful, and one has to give him a thumbs up.
This is not the first time that lawyer Lu Yijie has made people’s eyes light up in a public event.
Not long ago, he also slapped the face of the Maixiji District Tobacco Bureau of Tianshui City, Gansu Province.
Ruan Shuangquan, a villager in Maixiji District, was accused of selling tobacco without a license and profiting 20,000 yuan. In the first instance, he was sentenced to five years in prison for the crime of illegal business operations. During the second instance of the case, Ruan Shuangquan filed an administrative lawsuit, claiming that the Maixiji District Tobacco Bureau’s act of withdrawing and revoking his “Tobacco Retail License” did not serve him with a notice in accordance with the law, nor did it inform him of his right to a hearing in accordance with the law, and that the administrative act was invalid, and that he did not constitute the crime of illegal business operations.
On June 11, 2024, the Qinzhou District Court of Tianshui City held a hearing on this case.
In the administrative defense statement, the Maixiji District Tobacco Monopoly Bureau presented “evidence” to prove that its administrative act was “correct in its determination of facts and legal in its procedures”: The “Notice of Withdrawal of Tobacco Retail License” was made at the time, but because Ruan Shuangquan could not be contacted, it could not be served directly to him, so the notice was posted at the approved business address to serve Ruan Shuangquan.
In order to prove that what was said was true, the Maixiji District Tobacco Monopoly Bureau also provided a photo of the notice being served, claiming that it was “a photo of the Maixiji District Tobacco Monopoly Bureau of Tianshui City posting the ‘Notice of Withdrawal of Tobacco Retail License’ at the business address approved for the tobacco retail license of the relevant responsible person Ruan Shuangquan in April 2021.” At the end of this piece of evidence, the Maixiji District Tobacco Monopoly Bureau’s red administrative license seal was also affixed.
Lu Yijie is Ruan Shuangquan’s agent lawyer. After his investigation, he found that the Maixiji District Tobacco Bureau’s so-called posting of the notice at the shop entrance in 2021 was purely fabricated.
How did lawyer Lu Yijie discover and prove that the staff of the Tobacco Bureau fabricated evidence? First, he found that the couplets posted at the shop entrance in the photo of the Tobacco Bureau’s so-called 2021 notice were the same as those posted at the shop entrance in 2024. Didn’t they change the couplets for three years? This doesn’t quite fit common sense. Therefore, Lu Yijie and other lawyers mobilized their family members to search through the surrounding people’s circle of friends, and sure enough, someone had taken photos of the shop facade in 2021. The photos from that year showed that there were no couplets posted at the shop entrance at that time, which easily exposed the Tobacco Bureau’s false pretense of fabricating evidence.
In order to further prove that the Tobacco Bureau fabricated evidence, the lawyers also checked the surrounding surveillance and found that on the early mornings of May 29 and 31, 2024, two staff members each repeatedly posted documents at the shop’s advertising signs, roller shutters, etc., took photos, and then tore off the posted documents and took them away, fabricating the process of service. Among them, the photo taken by the Tobacco Bureau staff at 6 a.m. on May 31, 2024, was exactly the photo of the so-called 2021 service submitted in the Tobacco Bureau’s files.
The lawyer found that at 6 a.m. on May 31, the staff of the Maixiji District Tobacco Bureau posted the “Notice of Withdrawal of Tobacco Retail License” from three years ago at Ruan Shuangquan’s original business address.
On June 2, 2024, the above two people returned to the scene at 1:07 a.m. and tore off the couplets posted at the scene. This means that the Tobacco Bureau realized that there should not have been couplets posted at the shop entrance in 2021.
At 1:07 a.m. on June 2, the surveillance camera captured the staff of the Maixiji District Tobacco Bureau tearing off the “Congratulations and Prosperity” couplets at Ruan Shuangquan’s original business address.
In order to prove that the Hongqi car parked at the scene in the surveillance video was the Tobacco Bureau’s car, and that the people posting documents and taking photos were also from the Tobacco Bureau, to prevent the Tobacco Bureau from quibbling that the car and people in the video had nothing to do with it, Lu Yijie specially visited the Tobacco Bureau several times to “secretly investigate”: On a rainy day, taking advantage of the fact that the bureau’s official car was not on duty, Lu Yijie “caught” the Hongqi car in the video in the bureau’s garage, and “met” the person in the video who posted documents and took photos in the office building, and took photos for preservation, and submitted them to the court together.
In the face of the ironclad evidence provided by the lawyer, the personnel of the Maixiji District Tobacco Bureau had to state in court: This “supplementary evidence” had no legal basis, this action was improper, and they apologized to the plaintiff and would handle the staff in accordance with relevant regulations.
Well done, Lawyer Lu!
Why is Lawyer Lu Yijie so good at slapping the faces of certain public officials who violate the law and regulations?
It turns out that before Lu Yijie became a lawyer, he was an excellent journalist, and a investigative journalist at that. He switched careers to become a lawyer two years ago. The evidence-gathering skills he uses in handling cases are actually the same as those he used in his investigative journalism back then.
There are many people like Lu Yijie who have transitioned from journalists to excellent evidence-based lawyers, such as Liu Chang, who also transitioned from a journalist to a lawyer. They were all excellent journalists in the past, and now they have applied the investigative methods they used in journalism to the practical operation of handling cases and gathering evidence, and practice has proven that the results are very good and very useful.
They may point out a new path for many media people who are still confused about their future.
October 11, 2024
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