Chapter 763: Chapter 243: Why hasn’t Lawyer Lv, who said he would come last time, arrived yet?
Chapter 763: Chapter 243: Why hasn’t Lawyer Lv, who said he would come last time, arrived yet?
Many lawyers have jokingly said that Article 306 of the Criminal Law is a sword hanging over the heads of all lawyers and defense attorneys.
In criminal proceedings, if a defense attorney or legal representative destroys or fabricates evidence, helps a party destroy or fabricate evidence, threatens, or induces witnesses to change their testimony against the facts or give false testimony, they shall be sentenced to imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention; in serious cases, imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years.
This is what we commonly refer to as the crime of perjury by lawyers.
Why is it said to be a sword hanging over our heads?
Because this crime is based on conduct, not on consequences!
That is to say, as long as you commit the act, whether or not you affect the work of the prosecutor’s office or the court, you can theoretically be held criminally responsible!
Thus, some law students have heard from their criminal law teachers that our criminal defense lawyers are either on their way to prison or in prison.
For this reason, criminal defense lawyers nowadays are a bit like echo chambers, echoing whatever the police, prosecution, and judiciary do, and there are some reasons for this.
Another week has passed.
At Tengda Law Firm, Zhang Wei was still engrossed in his work at the desk.
If previously it was only a simulation, now he was certain that the individual named Lv Zhizhang was truly a numbskull.
This time, he was very confident about putting the other party behind bars!
He had long been a fan of Old Tang, admiring most how Old Tang could send various people to prison at will, including the opposing party, their lawyers, and even those who bang the gavel above…
Thus, everything he did now was an imitation of Old Tang.
Old Tang was still in treatment, and with the New Year approaching, Zhang Wei felt he could present this case as a New Year’s gift to Director Tang!
After being busy for a while, Zhang Wei stopped his work and began to review his logic for any issues.
Since becoming a criminal defense lawyer, Zhang Wei had carefully studied the possible crimes of a lawyer.
Not only that, he had listened intently to every lecture given by Old Tang at the firm, especially those concerning practical criminal logic.
He understood why, despite his efforts, his clients would end up inexplicably behind bars…
In the final analysis, it was because he, as a civil law attorney, was completely ignorant of the criminal rule set.
This had nothing to do with the bar exam; the criminal law of the bar exam and the criminal law in practice are two completely different concepts.
Although the law teachers said that criminal defense lawyers were regularly in prison, Zhang Wei had actually conducted a statistical analysis and found that more lawyers from the civil and commercial law sectors ended up in jail.
After careful analysis, Zhang Wei believed that these lawyers, like him, did not understand criminal logic at all.
Moreover, they were overly confident in their legal literacy, which eventually led them to prison.
The field of civil and commercial law is about relationships between equal subjects, where autonomy of will is paramount, meaning that anything not expressly forbidden by law is permitted.
Therefore, many lawyers in this field, especially those who consider themselves at the forefront of civil law, are particularly keen on “designing” contracts and “innovating” models.
Because this can open up new tracks, and new tracks mean money.
But what they do not realize is that their actions might become entangled with criminal law, and once it enters the criminal domain, it’s a different kind of logic altogether.
The criminal field places great emphasis on the piercing principle, which is also the usual way of thinking for Old Tang.
I don’t care how complex your contract is, nor whether you have created a new model.
What I want to do is to look beyond these phenomena to study your essence.
In layman’s terms, I don’t care about all these details; I only want to see what benefits you ultimately gained from what you did!
Knowing is one thing, but understanding how to properly pierce through is true knowledge.
Zhang Wei now vividly remembers the case example Director Tang once taught him.
Our country strictly prohibits compound interest in private lending, commonly known as “interest on interest.” Interest should be just that—interest and not included in the principal.
However, there were civil lawyers playing it : Zhang San borrows ten thousand yuan from Li Si with a term of one year and an annual interest rate of ten percent.
Normally, after a year, Zhang San should pay back eleven thousand yuan.
But when the time comes, Zhang San has no money to pay back.
He’s not in a hurry for money, he has Zhang San borrow money from a third party designated by him, Wang Wu, also borrowing eleven thousand yuan for the same term of one year and at the same ten percent annual interest rate.
After borrowing the money, Li Si has Zhang San pay him back the eleven thousand yuan, and on the surface, the two settle the account, and Zhang San now owes money to Wang Wu.
But in reality, where did Wang Wu’s money come from?
It was also lent by Li Si, and there is a contract in place between the two: eleven thousand yuan for a term of one year, with no interest.
On the surface, this appears to have no problem—it’s the autonomy of will.
Zhang San couldn’t pay on time, and Li Si even arranged for him to borrow elsewhere, ostensibly to help him. The rightful source is novel✦fire.net
And this is a contract among three parties; looking at it, no one is practicing compound interest.
But if you pierce through these contracts and look at the essence, the interest has now become the principal, effectively achieving the effect of compound interest.
That’s a typical operation of predatory lending, and many online loan borrowers are like Zhang San; the online loan company is like Li Si.
Zhang San keeps borrowing and paying money, but in essence, he is just accruing interest on interest for others.
In practice, it’s even trickier; many online lending platforms, when investigated, end up having a single controlling person behind them…