Insight | Dean Huiling JIANG Discuss the First Principle of Justice with Shanghai’s Leading Legal Scholars

On November 24, 2022, Prof. Huiling JIANG, Dean of Tongji Law School, was invited to participate in the “Joint Discussion of Four Famous Legal Scholars in Shanghai: Returning to the Classical Propositions of Law”. The other three famous jurists who participated in the conference were Professor Xiaowangn SUN, former Dean of Fudan University Law School, Professor Chengxin PENG, Dean of Shanghai Jiaotong University Law School, and Professor Zhiming ZHANG, Dean of East China Normal University Law School. This event was one of the series activities of the first East China Normal University Postgraduate Cultural and Art Festival sponsored by the Graduate School of East China Normal University and hosted by the Law School. More than 2,000 students participated in this event through on-site participation or watching the live broadcast.

At the conference, Prof. Huiling JIANG gave a keynote speech with the title of “Returning to the First Principle of Justice”. He said that using the first principle to understand things and transform things is an eternally effective analysis method. The decision, implementation and correction of the current judicial reform measures are directly related to the first principle of justice. The first principle of justice has been embodied in the judicial system when it was created, and have gradually been fully understood in the process of rule of law development, and further verified in the judicial process. The so-called theoretical and institutional innovations that are made in isolation from the first principle of justice are water without source and wood without foundation, and it is difficult to maintain vitality. The judicial system should be constructed around the first principle, as it was in the era of Roman law, in the creation of the judicial system in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and other countries, and in the construction of a fair, efficient and authoritative socialist judicial system in China. Jiang Huiling, with his years of experience in judicial reform, selected ten major initiatives in the current judicial reform and gave an in-depth analysis from the first principle of the judicial system, and interacted with the audience on site and online.