Chinese Supreme Court Justice Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Corruption

Former Chinese Supreme Court Justice Huang Songyou, 52, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption after being convicted of taking more than 3.9 million yuan ($570,000) in bribes from four lawyers in return for favorable rulings. He was also convicted of embezzling 1.2 million yuan of government funds in 1997 when he was president of a city-level court in Guang-dong Province.

What is fascinating about the story below is that part of the sentence is to strip Huang “of his political rights for life, and all of his properties were confiscated.” I suppose with life imprisonment that will not matter much but political rights are treated as sentencing items in China — despite the relatively few rights afforded to citizens in comparison to the West.

The Court has 13 “grand justices” and is the highest judicial body in China.

Four other judges are implicated in the scandal.

For the full story, click here.