LAWYER’S ENDEAVOUR SAVES CHINESE MAN FROM EXECUTION WITH FOUR MINUTES TO GO

the case has sparked debate in the Chinese media about progress - and deficiencies - in China´s criminal law. Dong Wei, 26, hit a man over the head with a brick after they got into a fight outside a nightclub in the Shaanxi city of Yan´an in May last year.
He was convicted of murder in Yan´an last December and sentenced to death. His father then hired lawyer Zhu Zhanping to appeal to the Provincial Court.
Zhu argued that his client had acted in self-defence because the victim and his friends had assailed Dong, insulted his girlfriend and laid into him. The court rejected the appeal on April 22, but Zhu did not know this until he called to inquire on April 27.
He caught the next train to Beijing, travelling overnight, and went straight to the Supreme Court. He spent the entire day trying to find someone to review the case. Security guards would not let him enter the court grounds, saying he had to have permission from the person he was visiting. But the court was moving offices that day and all the phones were cut off.
Eventually one of his many calls was answered, and a female judge came out to accept his appeal documents. At five o´clock that afternoon, Zhu received a call from Dong´s weeping father, who told him the execution was set down for the following morning at 10.30.
The lawyer was at the Supreme Court gate when it opened the next morning at 8 o´clock but could not spot the judge he had seen the previous day. Again, he could not persuade the security guards to let him enter; again, he could not raise anyone inside by phone because of the office move.
At 9.45, Zhu gained entry after telling a security guard he needed to buy a court bulletin that was only available inside. Rushing through the corridors he found Judge Li Wuqing, vice-president of the No1 Criminal Court, in his office. The judge agreed with Zhu that the conviction was faulty and, using his own mobile phone (because the office phones were cut off) made frantic calls to locate the execution supervisor and stop the killing.
By then, Dong was standing in his cell waiting to be led out and shot in the back of the head by rifle, having given away all his belongings to other inmates. Zhu said he was encouraged that China had a judge such as Judge Li who was "loyal to our laws and responsible for people´s lives".
But the China Youth Daily newspaper said the case showed that the legal system still depended too much on the efforts of individuals rather than the rule of law. "If one of those three persons - the lawyer, the judge or the execution supervisor - had not had a mobile phone, what would have happened?" the paper asked.