Professor brings humor to legal studies

Exciting is not a term normally used when studying law. The examination of cases, judgments, protocols, procedure, cutting-edge arguments do not necessarily equate with a quickening pulse, even for the most ardent of students.

But Luo Xiang's class is different. Luo uses references from current affairs and bizarre court cases to spice up legal studies.

Since the criminal law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing accepted the invitation to open an account on video-sharing website Bilibili on March 9, he has taken the internet by storm with more than 2.6 million followers as of Monday. His first video was viewed nearly 5 million times within a week.

"It is beyond my expectations that so many students became interested in my class. Through the platform, I hope I can reach more students in teaching knowledge related to criminal law and help them better understand what really is the rule of law," Luo says in the video, adding that he will regularly upload his legal analysis on hot issues and share his thinking in book readings.

Well-known for its anime, comics and game-centric content, Bilibili has gained popularity with Generation Z (people born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s).

Before his Bilibili account, the professor, 43, had been popularly called as the platform's "judicial examination top wanghong (internet celebrity)" for dozens of short videos edited from his previous open classes targeting the national judicial exam.

Wearing a pair of glasses and a suit, Luo often starts his class with a story or a weird case, which may even challenge a moral bottom line, to explain legal terms. Behind the "funny" cases, his class is always inspirational, sparking discussion about law and ethnics.

During one of his classes, discussing what constitutes a justified or excessive defense, he gives a "great" example of how actions can be identified from self-defense to excessive force in the eyes of the law.

In the case, during a winter in the 1980s, a woman was riding a bike on a road when she came across a man who wanted to rape her. She pretended to agree and took the man to a place near a cesspool. When the man took off his clothes, she pushed him into the pool.

The first time the man tried to climb out, she stepped on his hands and he fell back. He tried three times, but every time she prevented him.

"It was a controversial case at that time when many people said the first step could be defined as self-defense, but the second and third could be excessive," Luo says, hinting viewers to think what is necessary to remove the threat.

"If I were the woman, I will step on him four times and smash him in the head with a brick," Luo says, adding that people should think what an ordinary person, not a second-guesser, will do under the circumstances.

"An ordinary person will push the man into the cesspool, step on him when he tries to climb up, and smash him with stones. But do not get splashes on yourself," Luo adds. The case reminds people of a similar one in 2018. This involved a bike rider who killed a BMW driver in Kunshan, Jiangsu province. The case triggered heated debate over the right of self-defense. Judicial authorities identified the rider's behavior as justified.

"During the case, many people analyzed at which point did the stabbing of the driver mean that his resistance was reduced," Luo says, adding it is not "a video game" that you can check the fighter's health on screen.

His funny language and interesting stories have attracted millions of people, but for Luo, he is always serious about the law studies.

"Law studying should be serious, not entertaining," Luo posts on his Sina Weibo account.

Many viewers who follow his videos comment that his xiangsheng (cross-talk) style of law education has helped close the gap between the law and the public.

Another case in Luo's class brought Guo Li, the wrongly jailed father of a tainted baby formula victim in Beijing, back to spotlight.

Guo's daughter, then 2, became ill in 2008 from drinking formula made from Guangdong Yashili Group's tainted milk powder, which contained melamine, a chemical normally used to make plastics and fertilizer.

During compensation negotiations for 2 million yuan ($285,350) with representatives of Yashili, Guo was falsely accused of attempting to blackmail the company. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison in 2010.

"The judge's logic is that when your daughter gets kidney illness, you can go to hospital. You can show the medical bills. In food safety cases, compensation is set at 10 times the maximum purchasing price under the Food Safety Law. Assuming the price of the milk powder is 10,000 yuan, the compensation should be 100,000 yuan. You ask for 2 million. That is blackmail," Luo says.

Never admitting guilt, Guo served his sentence and got divorced while he was in prison. In 2017, the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court overturned his conviction for attempting to extort money from Yashili.

Due to many sad stories, including Guo's, the Supreme People's Court passed a judicial explanation in 2016, which said that the defendant's right to appeal should be protected and the legitimate appeal should not be taken as no guilty plea, according to Luo. It was implemented in 2018.

"Guo is still pursuing his appeal. How much compensation can bring him justice? Maybe it is not about money," Luo says.

He emphasizes that "for individual rights, if something is not forbidden by law, then it is allowed".

A viewer comments that "the video makes me reflect on our country's judicial system".

Keeping a low profile, Luo says "I don't want to be famous, but I want to be a person who respects his profession."

At the end of his first video on Bilibili, Luo uses Isaac Newton's quote as his conclusion.

"I was like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

A graduate from the Peking University with a doctorate degree in criminal law, Luo is director of the Institute of Criminal Law at the China University of Political Science and Law. He has been selected as one of the 10 most popular professors among students since 2008.