One day, you find yourself as the plaintiff in a case without even knowing it, and then you discover: the house under your name is gone?!
This is exactly what happened in Yingyang County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province. "How could I be the plaintiff without even knowing it?" said Luo Huilai, a farmer in his 50s, with a red face. His house was transferred to someone else through a lawsuit "he initiated."
Luo Huilai runs a business selling large rings made from reeds (a container used in rural areas for storing grain - reporter's note) to Northeast China. By the end of 2005, he had lost money and couldn't repay a loan of more than 700,000 yuan to the local credit cooperative. At this time, Wang Gan, an employee at the Yingshang County office of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, paid this amount on his behalf to the credit cooperative.
"Wang Gan wanted to buy two shops I own in Shanghai, but I never agreed. I only told him that if we negotiate well, I can give you one," Luo Huilai said.
Before the deal was completed, they signed an agreement: "Party B Luo Huilai voluntarily sells two storefronts located in a certain place in Shanghai to Party A Wang Gan for 862,224.6 yuan. Party A will prepay 742,224.6 yuan to Party B by December 30, 2005, and the remaining 120,000 yuan will be paid by March 10, 2006. Party B must provide the property certificate of the above-mentioned houses to Party A."
According to Luo Huilai's recollection: "At the time, Wang Gan paid off my debt to the credit cooperative, fearing that I might run away. So we agreed to hand over my property certificate to the court for temporary safekeeping. The handling judge was Zheng Zhangyou."
However, he never expected that the house would be transferred to Wang Gan without his signature.
In late July 2006, Luo Huilai, Zheng Zhangyou, and Wang Gan went together to the Hongkou District Real Estate Bureau in Shanghai.
According to Luo Huilai: "When they asked me to go, I just went along. They were talking while I waited aside. I didn't say anything because I didn't know what was going on. I didn't see any transfer documents because they went upstairs to handle things, asking me to wait downstairs and make copies of materials. I saw a court mediation statement with my name on it. I was puzzled, so I secretly slipped the original into my pocket. I dared not look at it until I got home." On August 10 of the same year, the owner of the house was changed to Wang Gan.
A reporter from China Youth Daily questioned: "If you didn't intend to sell, normally you should have rushed to pay back the money. How could you sign a purchase agreement?"
"I certainly wanted to repay the money, but the time was too short. We signed the agreement in March, and before I could raise the funds, the house became his in August!" Luo Huilai answered.
In 2007, Luo Huilai still frequently visited the petition office of the Yingshang County Court, "at that time, my sole intention was to get my house back."
The staff of the petition office retrieved a "Civil Mediation Statement": "Look, this is something you agreed to yourself, and now regretting won't help."
The date on this civil mediation statement was just before the house transfer that year. In the "plaintiff" column, it was written none other than Luo Huilai himself, who was completely confused.
Did the judge orchestrate a case involving "six fakes"?
Luo Huilai said that this case involved "six fakes."
"First fake, they helped me hire a lawyer and forged a power of attorney; second fake, they helped me with fake litigation; third fake, they helped me with fake filing; fourth fake, they helped me with a fake trial; fifth fake, they helped me create a fake mediation statement; sixth fake, the judge went to the real estate bureau for fake forced execution," Luo Huilai stated.
Materials seen by the reporter from China Youth Daily showed that on July 21, 2006, Luo Huilai sued Wang Gan at the Yingshang County Court for owing him 100,000 yuan in house payment.
There was no signature or fingerprint of Luo Huilai on the complaint. The entrusted agent was legal worker Zhang Xueyi.
Strangely enough, in the interrogation record of the Yingshang County People's Procuratorate in July 2008, Zhang Xueyi admitted that he didn't even know Luo Huilai at the time.
Zhang Xueyi said: "I met Luo Huilai for the first time when he came to inquire about the agency case situation around May 2008." This time was already two full years after the "entrustment."
So, where did these complaints, entrustments, and certificates come from?
According to Zhang Xueyi's recollections: "The civil complaint, Luo Huilai's ID card copy, a house sale agreement, and an authorization letter with Luo Huilai's signature and date items all blank were handed over to me by Judge Zheng Zhangyou. Zheng also gave me money and asked me to file the case at the filing office."
"After I filed the case, I gave the invoice to Judge Zheng, who then asked me to hand over the power of attorney to Judge Wang Ruixiang. All this was arranged by Zheng Zhangyou," Zhang Xueyi said.
He also confirmed that on the receipt of the court's delivery of the filing, it wasn't the complainant Luo Huilai who signed, but rather Wang Ruixiang who made him sign.
The prosecution once asked: "Do you know whether the claims in the complaint are Luo Huilai's true intentions?"
"I don't know, this was arranged by Zheng Zhangyou," Zhang replied.
"Is it correct for the parties not to be present for authorization and not to participate in mediation?" the reporter asked.
"This practice is incorrect. Since Zheng Zhangyou is a court staff member and we have a good relationship, I violated the rules to process it," Zhang Xueyi said.
In the investigation and questioning records of Wang Ruixiang, Wang claimed that Zheng Zhangyou said there was a case, "asking me to handle it. If there were any problems, he could mediate."
Two judges were involved
So, was the blank power of attorney signed by Luo Huilai genuine or fake? "It was me who signed it," Luo Huilai recalled, "when I went to the court once, Judge Zheng called me into his office, gave me a piece of paper to sign, without telling me what it was for. I signed it on the table."
In the interrogation record of the Yingshang County People's Procuratorate, Zheng Zhangyou said that Luo Huilai was once his middle school student, so he helped him with the litigation.
"If I asked him for help, why didn't he let me sign the complaint? Why didn't he notify me personally to participate in the mediation? Especially, why didn't he hand over the civil mediation statement issued by the People's Court to me?" Luo Huilai questioned.
During the preliminary investigation, the procuratorate asked Zheng Zhangyou: "Wang Gan handed over 120,000 yuan to you and was willing to bear the cost of the transfer. They could directly take the agreement to the real estate department for the transfer, and afterward, you could hand over the remaining amount to Luo Huilai. Why would there still be a case where Luo sues Wang Gan?"
Zheng Zhangyou replied: "Luo Huilai would want the remaining money, even if he owed him 1000 yuan, he would sue." He clearly denied receiving any benefits from the parties involved.
From the filing on July 21, 2006, to the court's announcement on July 27, 2006, the entire case took only six days. During this period, Luo Huilai was not present.
In accepting the procuratorate's investigation, Zheng Zhangyou said that after the civil mediation, Luo Huilai actively invited him to assist with the transfer in Shanghai.
Strangely enough, relevant evidence in the case file showed that the transfer in Shanghai in August 2006 was a "forced execution" by the court, without the signature of the homeowner Luo Huilai.
At this point, another judge from the Yingshang County Court, Li Shiran, appeared. He hired a car from Yingshang County and presented his work credentials and official duty certificate to the staff of the Hongkou District Real Estate Bureau.
Upon verification by the reporter from China Youth Daily, the civil mediation was handled by the Second Civil Division of the Yingshang County Court, yet Li Shiran was a judge from the First Civil Division. How could he intervene in a case not under his jurisdiction?
The truth was that his appearance was due to a phone call from Zheng Zhangyou.
Li Shiran recalled: "At the time, I was sick at home, and Zheng Zhangyou called me from Shanghai, saying that the case needed to be processed for the transfer, requiring court staff to show their credentials. He himself did not have an official duty certificate. Additionally, the case must be completed the next day for the transfer, otherwise, several ten thousand yuan more would need to be paid for the transfer fee. For the sake of the parties involved, you endure some hardship and hire a car to go."
Why would a civil mediation require "forced execution"?
Two years later, Li Shiran confessed to the procuratorate that assisting with the transfer was "without going through the execution process."
In the archived "Explanation of the Situation," Judge Li specifically explained: "After arriving in Shanghai, I reviewed the legal documents. I believed that the effective legal document clearly stated that both parties could use this document for the transfer. After reviewing, I thought there was no need for the execution process. But showing the credentials was not illegal, the purpose being to prove that with the mediation document, court personnel were present for the transfer."
The Intermediate People's Court of the city recognized the "false plaintiff" case
In March 2008, the Anti-Dereliction of Duty and Infringement Bureau of the Yingshang County People's Procuratorate began investigating this matter.
Six months later, the procuratorate determined that "the actions of Zheng Zhangyou, Wang Ruixiang, Wang Gan, and Zhang Xueyi did not constitute a crime," hence no case was filed. Judges and other related responsible persons suspected of dereliction of duty have not been held accountable to this day.
And in these four years, Luo Huilai's house has never returned to his hands.
He has been appealing, requesting the court to revoke the original civil mediation statement and return his two storefronts in the Hongkou District of Shanghai. His defense lawyer argued: "Luo never commissioned legal worker Zhang Xueyi. There was no legitimate and effective legal relationship established between them. Zhang's actions cannot represent Luo's true intentions, and Luo should not bear the legal consequences of the mediation statement."
In October 2009, the Yingshang County People's Court ruled that "the original mediation violated the principle of voluntariness" and revoked the controversial civil mediation statement.
But the defendant Wang Gan was dissatisfied and appealed to the Intermediate People's Court of Fuyang City. He insisted that the original civil mediation statement was "legally valid."
During several hearings, Wang Gan presented evidence in the form of two receipts written by Luo Huilai. They respectively indicated receiving 100,000 yuan and 20,000 yuan, stating "my transaction of buying and selling a house with Wang Gan is settled." The date was on the day of the house transfer - August 10, 2006.
The reporter from China Youth Daily asked Luo Huilai: "Why did you accept the money and write the receipt? Did you voluntarily sell the house?"
He replied: "No, this was in the hotel in Shanghai that day. Zheng Zhangyou and Wang Gan made me sign it. After leaving the real estate bureau, they transferred the money to me and then asked me to write it. I said I didn't know how to write it, so he said 'I'll dictate, you write.' At that time, I had to write it, as a commoner, I was afraid."
On February 8 of this year, the Fuyang Intermediate Court ruled that Luo Huilai's claim that he never initiated the lawsuit and that the case was fake could not stand.
The court considered: "Although there was no signature or fingerprint of Luo Huilai on the original first-instance appeal, the mediation file contained copies of Luo Huilai's ID card, property certificate, and original house purchase agreement, as well as his signature on the power of attorney, all proving the fact that he commissioned Zheng Zhangyou to initiate the lawsuit."
Luo Huilai insisted that the above-mentioned documents were not provided by him: "In 2005, when I had disputes with the credit cooperative, the presiding judge was Zheng Zhangyou. It was easy for him to obtain copies of my ID card and property certificate from the case file."
At the same time, the court believed that although Zhang Xueyi did not obtain authorization from the parties involved, "but the two receipts issued by Luo Huilai to Wang Gan according to the content of the mediation document could corroborate his acknowledgment of the mediation content."
Therefore, the ruling again recognized that "the original civil mediation did not violate the principle of voluntariness and should be upheld."
On May 18, 2009, Luo Huilai submitted a retrial application to the Higher People's Court of Anhui Province, which has been accepted.
"We commissioned an appraisal agency, estimating that my two stores are now worth more than 3 million yuan, with annual rent approaching 100,000 yuan, and now I have nothing left," he said, frowning, smoking one cigarette after another.
As of the publication of this article, the reporter has continuously attempted to contact the Yingshang County Court and related judges involved, but all attempts have been unsuccessful.
Our newspaper will continue to follow the progress of this matter.