A court has sentenced to life the most senior judge ever convicted of taking bribes and embezzlement, in a sign of intensified efforts to fight judicial corruption.
Huang Songyou, former vice-president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), was found guilty of taking bribes of more than 3.9 million yuan ($574,000) from 2005 to 2008, said the Langfang Intermediate People's Court in north China's Hebei province, where Huang went on trial last Thursday.
He is the first justice of the highest court to be dismissed for law and discipline violations, according to Shen Deyong, executive vice-president of the SPC.
A native of Guangdong, Huang became SPC vice-president in 2002.
According to the verdict, Huang, 52, together with others, also embezzled more than 3 million yuan from the Intermediate People's Court of Zhanjiang in south China's Guangdong province in 1997, when he was president of the court. Huang's share of the loot was 1.2 million yuan.
The court also ordered all his properties be confiscated.
The court said Huang had voluntarily confessed to his crimes and most of his ill-gotten money had been recovered.
"But as a top judge, Huang knowingly violated the law by trading power for money and taking a hefty sum of bribes, which has had a bad impact on society, and should be punished severely," the verdict read.
Neither Huang nor his lawyers said whether they would appeal. The lawyers, Gao Zicheng and Long Zongzhi, refused to make any comment on the case yesterday.
The investigation started after Yang Xiancai, a judge at the Guangdong Provincial Higher People's Court, was found guilty of taking bribes while handling a real-estate case in June 2008.
Many lawyers and judges in Guangdong were later found to be involved in Yang's case, and the Guangdong higher court has punished 14 of its staff involved in Huang's case.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection started an investigation into Huang on Oct 15, 2008.
Huang was removed from the position of SPC vice-president two weeks later by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature. He was expelled from the Party on Aug 21 last year, before his case was sent to the Supreme People's Procuratorate in October.
"I think Huang's is an individual case, which is not necessarily related to the environment of the whole legal system", SPC spokesman Sun Jungong said yesterday.
