Zhang Zhirang

December 28, 1893 was the birthday of Mr. Zhang Zhirang, a famous patriot and the first Justice of New China. Zhang Zhirang studied in the United States and Germany in his early years and engaged in legal career after returning to China. Under the influence of the famous Communist Zhang Tailei, he devoted himself to the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution and became a passionate patriotic democrat since then. In the early days of the founding of New China, he served as the director of the School Council of Fudan University; after the establishment of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China, Mr. Zhang Zhirang was appointed as the vice president and worked hard in this position for nearly 30 years until his death.

Zhang Zhirang participated in the activities of the famous literary group "Nanshe" when he was a teenager. He expressed his patriotic feelings with Liu Yazi and other sad songs, and was called a "hero" by Liu Yazi. In the summer of 1921, Zhang Zhirang returned from studying overseas. He first served as a counselor in the Ministry of Justice of the Beiyang government, and then was hired as a judge of the Dali Academy. In the eyes of the people of the time, he was hesitant and full of ambitions. But Zhang Zhirang developed a sense of disgust. He said: "In the past few years in Beijing, I have seen the phenomenon of warlords competing for power and the government competing for power at that time. If you want to do anything in this environment that is beneficial to the people, it is really called the opposite." Therefore, when the news came in the summer and autumn of 1926 that the Northern Expedition Army had conquered Wuhan and recaptured the British Concession, Zhang Zhirang resolutely abandoned his official position and went south to Wuhan in March 1927. Here, he found a famous Communist and his cousin Zhang Tailei, and had a long talk that made him feel that he had entered a new political world. On Zhang Tailei's recommendation, he entered the Supreme Court of the Wuhan Revolutionary Government to work on civil cases. During this period, he began to study Marxist works. On November 22, 1936, the Kuomintang authorities arrested seven famous patriots, Shen Junru, Zhang Naiqi, Zou Taofen, Li Gongpu, Sha Qianli, Wang Zaoshi, and Shi Liang, on trumped-up charges, causing a sensational "Seven Gentlemen" to be unjustly imprisoned. Hearing the news, Zhang Zhirang agreed to defend the "Seven Gentlemen" together with 20 lawyers such as Zhang Yaozeng and Jiang Yong. According to Shi Liang and others, Zhang Zhirang was actually the lead lawyer. He drafted a long defense, refuting the framed accusations against Shen Junru and others in the indictment prepared by the Kuomintang authorities one by one with a large number of facts and arguments. After the "July 7th" Incident, the Anti-Japanese National United Front was officially established, and Mr. Zhang Zhirang devoted himself to the cause of national salvation with higher enthusiasm. On August 31, 1945, Zhang Zhirang, Huang Yanpei, Chen Hanbo, Fu Binran, and other representatives of eight magazines in Chongqing, including Constitutionalism, Wenhui Weekly, and Middle School Student, decided to ask the Kuomintang authorities to abolish the censorship of books and magazines, and refused to submit it for trial from the next day. This decision was once passed through the public society, and the situation took off. In Chongqing, Chengdu, Kunming, Guilin, Xi'an and other cities, in addition to the Kuomintang newspapers and periodicals, all newspapers and periodicals responded one after another. Under the impact of the massive "anti-inspection movement", the two fascist censorship systems of wartime news censorship and book and magazine censorship were finally announced to be abolished.

After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Zhang Zhirang engaged in patriotic and democratic activities such as the "Union of Education and Education" in Shanghai, and established a closer relationship with the party organization. He would exchange views with the party organization every time he took action, and took the initiative to solicit the party's instructions when encountering difficult problems. He led democracy professors in Shanghai universities to issue patriotic and democratic declarations many times, exposing the Kuomintang's reactionary actions of provoking a full-scale civil war, opposing the Kuomintang's betrayal of national interests, protesting the rape of China female college students by the US military, and so on. Regardless of the threats and threats from the Kuomintang authorities, he wrote and finalized almost every declaration he issued, and he always took the lead in signing it. When the Kuomintang authorities created the "May 20 massacre" and devastated patriotic students in Shanghai, Zhang Zhirang took action and led Fudan University professors to resolutely strike, which had a major impact on the national patriotic democratic movement. Comrades in the underground party affectionately called him the "Bolshevik Outside the Party."

Since the establishment of the Supreme People's Court in New China, Zhang Zhirang has been appointed vice president. He is the first generation of judges in New China. In 1954, our country promulgated the first constitution. Zhang Zhirang participated in the drafting and formulation of this constitution. Under the leadership of the party group of the Supreme People's Court, he also presided over the review of many important judicial documents to establish and improve various judicial systems, and guided the courts across the country to continuously improve the judicial level, correctly apply laws and policies, and do a good job in trial work. In 1956, before the country had promulgated the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law, the Supreme Court decided that Zhang Zhirang would be responsible for conducting "investigation and research on the crime, type of punishment, and range of sentencing in criminal cases", and using the method of summarizing trial practice experience to guide the work of convictions and sentencing in courts at all levels. This is an important measure for the construction of the legal system. Under his chairpersonship, more than 920,000 materials from 23 high courts were organized, which brought together the rich practice and experience of the trial work of people's courts at all levels across the country since the founding of the People's Republic of China. After repeated and in-depth discussions, the first draft of the "Preliminary Summary of Offenses, Types of Penalties and Sentencing Range in Criminal Cases" was formed, and it was sent to more than 40 units across the country in courts, public security, institutions of higher learning and other systems for extensive solicitation of opinions. On the basis of brainstorming, he painstakingly studied and revised, and strived to improve it. Finally, it was passed by the Judicial Committee of the Supreme Court and distributed to the national courts. This "summary" actually played the role of criminal law and criminal procedure law.