Professor Xiong Minghui of Sun Yat-sen University gave a lecture at the 2014 Law Forum of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

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By Wu Yue. Translated by Sunny Luo. September 27, 2014.

Late on Sep. 16, 2014, Professor Xiong Minghui, Deputy Director of the Institute of Logic and Cognitive at Sun Yat-sen University, gave us a lecture entitled “When Bo Xilai Met Simpson—Logic Mechanism of Judicial Justice” at administration building on campus located on Guo Ding road . Professor Xu Jijiang of SHUFE Law School presided over the lecture.

In Professor Xiong Minghui’s lecture, he shared with us his analysis and evaluation on the legal argumentation of Bo Xilai case and Simpson case respectively. The former case took place in China last year and the latter one came about in America in the 1990s, both of which have significant impact on the society. After a brief introduction on the legal argumentation of Bo Xilai case, Professor Xiong pointed out the improvements achieved in case hearings, for example, judgments attach greater importance to reasoning and suit themselves more to the framework of argument and game. However, some problems still exist. Traditionally, legal syllogism is considered to be the fundamental mode of legal argumentation in trial practice. Litigation lawyers frequently adopt legal syllogism to prove their claims. In a legal syllogism, the major premise is a general rule, the minor premise is the recognized fact and a conclusion is arrived at by connecting the major premise and the minor premise. Therefore, we can see law as the major premise, facts as the minor premise in a legal syllogism to obtain a conclusion. However, what we can’t see from a syllogism is evidence and that’s the crucial reason why there still exist so many unjust and false cases. To improve the situation, we need to modify the existing syllogism to conclude more elements. Maybe we can call it 5-paragragh reasoning which also depends on fully consideration on facts-supported evidence and judge’s understanding of legal norms. Beyond that, Professor Xiong also made some suggestions for criminal trail: same rules and punishment should apply to relatives of government employees who ask for or receive bribes; legal sentences for bribery and corruption should be the same; Introducing witnesses cross-examination into trail; abrogating the judiciary idea “leniency to those who confess and severity to those who resist”. Reinforcing the construction of jury system, and authorizing the jury to hear facts; Lengthening the period of trial; Reflecting on the criterion of judgment to hear based on facts and law＂

Towards the end of his lecture, Professor Xiong interacted with students by answering questions raised deepening their understanding of his opinions and theories. The lecture ended in warm applause of all teachers and students attending.

(Original News: http://law.shufe.edu.cn/structure/xyxwxx_161322_1.htm)

Published：2014-09-27 Hit：533