What's wrong with this lawyer?!

Handong Province High Court, Old Tang sat quietly in the plaintiff's representative position, listening to the other party's defense.

He wasn't surprised by the opponent's defense strategy, or, to put it another way, even if he were the opposing representative, the defense strategy would be more or less the same.

Why defend from the angle of "non-retroactivity of law"? Because under a normal defense, there is currently no chance of winning.

The new "Securities Law" and judicial interpretations, as well as the regulations issued by the Securities Regulatory Commission, are all protecting the interests of investors.

This means clearly that the previous methods won't work; those who dare to act that way should be prepared to lose money.

It can be said that no matter how the other side argues, Old Tang could produce enough evidence and regulations to counter them.

So the other party can only defend using the point of "non-retroactivity of law".

Meanwhile, Lv Xiaowan had finished her lengthy exposition of her views.

Old Tang immediately started to refute, "Normally, the law should not have retroactive effect, but the principle of non-retroactivity is not absolute and there are exceptions."

"And here, I believe the blanket retroactivity principle should be applied."

Old Tang's expression was calm because all possible counter-methods from the opponent had been tested through "Mind Storm"; he had sufficient measures for every scenario.

Now, Old Tang's countermeasure was "blanket retroactivity."

Blanket retroactivity, also called retroactive application of new regulations, originates from the rule that judges cannot refuse to adjudicate.

When a legal fact occurs without relevant regulations, but relevant regulations exist now, to facilitate judges' adjudication and ensure the uniformity of adjudication standards, the blanket retroactivity principle is applied.

Unless there exist exceptional provisions.

During the transition between old and new laws, corresponding provisions are usually issued, like the first judicial interpretation when the Civil Code was promulgated, namely "the Supreme Court's provisions regarding the temporal effectiveness of the Civil Code."

It clarifies under what circumstances the old law applies and under what circumstances the new law applies; "non-retroactivity of law" is a principle, but principles have exceptions.

The exceptions are "blanket retroactivity," "beneficial retroactivity," and "newly applied cross-law."

Specifically, no explanation is needed; these are relatively straightforward concepts obvious from their names.

Old Tang's proposition of the blanket retroactivity principle was quickly refuted by Lv Xiaowan.

"We can see that both the new law and the old law have related provisions, so before the exhaustion of legal rules, legal principles cannot be applied!"

"Therefore, I believe the blanket retroactivity principle cannot be directly applied in this case..."

Lv Xiaowan raised another point, namely, "Exhaust legal rules before applying legal principles."

This statement is convoluted; bluntly, it means the court can only apply legal principles in adjudication when there are absolutely no corresponding concrete regulations.

This was an old issue for the court in the past, where many local judges were fond of using legal principles to adjudicate cases.

The simplest "principle of fairness" compelled the Supreme Court to issue exemplary cases, because judges directly applied the fairness principle in adjudication.

The reason why the law does not strictly prohibit judges from using "legal principles" in their discretionary judgment is because some individual cases, if not treated with legal principles, might lead to bizarre final verdicts.

However, old habits die hard; as long as an opening is given, it will be abused by some people, hence the Supreme Court's repeated emphasis on this issue.

Lv Xiaowan's long argumentative monologue virtually elevated the debate beyond the securities field to another dimension.

Old Tang started to refute again, "Article ninety-three of our Legislation Law stipulates that laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, autonomous regulations, and special regulations, as well as rules, do not have retroactive effect, except for special provisions made to better protect the rights and interests of citizens, legal persons, and other organizations..."

Then Old Tang began to argue in detail why the special representation system is a special provision made to better protect the rights and interests of citizens, legal persons, and other organizations.

If one is to argue, then all the elements must be deconstructed and analyzed—whether instituting the special representative system actually protects these people's interests, and whose interests are truly being protected!

Then comes the discussion of whose interests are harmed in this case...

Their debate has somewhat stepped outside of legal boundaries, at least some of Old Tang's words left the Judgment Chief feeling somewhat taken aback.

No, all kinds of capitalists have appeared; how am I supposed to deal with you mentioning these here?

Of course, the mention of capitalists by Old Tang was casual, since, realistically, it is hard to categorize the nature of these investors thoroughly.

Among investors are companies, individuals; you can't generalize.

Apart from Lv Xiaowan, other defendants also retained lawyers who expressed their own views.

For example, Old Zheng was the only one among all defendants who attended the court, and he spoke with great confidence during the trial.

"As a Chief Legal Officer, I have no other options, I can only propose and reserve my opinions, and I believe I have fulfilled my responsibilities as a Chief Legal Officer."

"It is not my job to determine whether something is illegal; I am only responsible for risk assessments in terms of legal significance..."