An extraordinary lawsuit between an ordinary police officer and the powerful Ministry of Justice has sparked much interest in Baishan, a scenic city in northeast China's Jilin Province. 

Being admitted to the bar has been 35-year-old Sun Zhenguo's biggest ambition, though he currently works for the city's public security bureau. Sun, who graduated from Jilin Public Security College, took a national judicial examination after years of preparation in 2003, but fell short by nine marks.

Undiscouraged, Sun re-sat the exam in September the following year.

On December 9, he received notification that, due to duplicate answers to test questions, his scores had been revoked, and as further punishment he was disqualified from taking the test again for two years.

Sun learned that in their jurisprudence papers, several Baishan examinees' answers had been 95 percent identical with his. However, none of them were in the same examination room as him.

As there was no hard evidence for his alleged cheating, Sun thought the punishment was unfair and grossly infringed on his rights.

After consulting local judicial organs and the provincial Department of Justice, on December 22 he brought an action against the Ministry of Justice, who had imposed the penalty, in a Beijing court.

"The reason I decided to engage in a lawsuit was to safeguard my rights, and to find out what's actually going on in my case," said Sun.

He said he had three further reasons for going to court: there had been no explanation for how he was meant to have cheated while being in a different room from the other examinees; there was no legal basis for the ministry's penalty; and the ministry's regulations say those cheating in two or more courses' examinations should be punished, whereas his case involved only one.

On February 23, the Beijing No.2 Intermediate People's Court approved for the case to be heard, but didn't set a date for a court session.

In Baishan over 500 people took the national judicial examination last year. Both the provincial Department of Justice and the city's justice bureau have been unable to explain how they think the alleged cheating took place. Previously, only those with 100 percent identical answers had been accused of cheating.

According to lawyer Wang Lianzhong, from the Renbo Law Firm in Tonghua City, Jilin, the possibility of high-tech cheating cannot be ruled out. Nevertheless, since the judicial department has provided no evidence such speculation cannot stand up to legal scrutiny.

A couple of years ago, several students from Qingdao in Shandong Province tried to jointly take the Ministry of Education to court, but to no avail. Dr. Lin Laifan of the China Law Society said the acceptance of Sun's case shows encouraging signs of improvement in the nation's legal system.

Sun's decision to go to court was a reasonable act to get his grievances addressed, said Lin, and it's right for the court to accept and hear the case since suppressing it would do more harm than good to social stability.

All are equal before the law, and Sun believes the final result of the lawsuit doesn't depend on either party's power and status, no matter how great the disparity appears to be.

"Through my case, I hope people will increase their legal consciousness, and resort to legal means more often to protect their lawful rights and interests," he said.

(China.org.cn by Shao Da, March 18, 2005)