In order to in-depth assimilate Xi Jinping’s Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, comprehensively promote the rule of law, strengthen law education, and immerse teachers and students in the rule of law culture, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, Lanzhou University Law School has followed the concept of “to study the Party’s history, understand its theories, do practical work and make new advances” and actively respond to the call of General Secretary Xi Jinping to promote the revolutionization, standardization and professionalization of the political and legal team, and strive to deal with the lack of practical teaching space for moot courts, and tap into social resources to improve the conditions. Consequently, “Lanzhou University Law School Moot Court” was established in the Gansu Chengyu Law Firm. All students in the 2018 class of laws were fully engaged in the trial, also an assessment for the “Moot Court Research and Practice” course. This is also the first activity since the moot court was established.

Associate Professor Chen supervised the moot court. All the students are divided into two major groups, including investigators, prosecutors, trial group, defense group, logistics group, and publicity group and assigned to two different criminal cases. It demands that each team first determines a basic case, and the students of the investigation group will follow and collect evidence and have an intellectual transaction with the parties involved. The two groups each produced hundreds of pages of investigative files which were submitted to the prosecution team, trial team, and defense team. As playing three different roles in the court, the three parties prepared the basic materials with discretion. The logistics team is responsible for material preparation and takes shifts on court hearings. The publicity team is responsible for recording the images of the students working together by making exquisite posters and WeChat post and assuring a smooth live broadcast of the trial on platforms such as Bilibili and Douyu.

On May 20, 2021, in the Moot Court of LULS, two criminal cases were opened for trial, which stood as a comprehensive examination of the students who have worked on for more than a month. Experts with rich experience in judicial practice were invited to attend the court trial to observe, comment and offer suggestion. Li Xiaodong (National Outstanding Public Prosecutor, Director of the Third Prosecution Department of Lanzhou Chengguan District Procuratorate), Teng Xiaoqiong (Criminal Tribunal judge of Chengguan District Court), Xu Jin (Director of the Criminal Professional Committee of Lanzhou Lawyers Association), Dong Wubin (Vice President of Lanzhou Lawyers Association, Director of Gansu Chengyu Law Firm), Ling Guang (Director of Criminal Business Department of Gansu Chengyu Law Firm), Chen Hang (Professor of Law School of Lanzhou University), etc. gave high praise to the moot court, affirming the efforts of the students while pointing out the areas to be more desired. For that, students benefited a lot.

Gan Peizhong, the dean of LULS, He Junwen, deputy secretary of the Party, Professor Zhang Jianjun, and Li Chuan took presence and observed the activity, which greatly encouraged the morale and enthusiasm of the students. The mock trial received the full support of Gansu Chengyu Law Firm. The director of the firm, Dong Wubin graduated from the Law School of Lanzhou University, whose professionalism and enthusiasm for alam mater made a deep impression on the students. Many students claimed that they would strive forward in the future with Dong as their model. Combining with their own work experience, the judicial personnel here, made insightful and detailed comment, from perspectives of their attitude, knowledge reserves, reasoning quality, and tough points in the case. Furthermore, they expressed their ardent expectations that representatives full of energy and passion as well as with a wealth of knowledge, are wanted in judicial practice.

This moot court was mainly involved in two hot social cases of fraud and extortion. From sorting out the background information to preparing related files and completing the pleadings, from preparation before court to confrontation in court, from investigations to debates, the students remained enthusiastic throughout the whole process, fully demonstrating the rationality of ability to analyze, logical precision, and rigour approach to scholarly research, always emphasized by the School.

In such a short span of just over one month, participants left no stones unturned. Although it was strenuous, it ha. Under the promotion and guidance of Professor Chen, the activity of moot court must have injected refreshing ideas. This activity challenged students’ legal theory knowledge acquired over three years, which also facilitated them to closely see the Holme’s saying of “The life of law lies not in logic but in experience”. In this way, students further strengthened determination to study hard constantly, gained a deeper understanding and experience of the legal profession, and had a more intuitive and comprehensive grasp of career planning.

Law is the art of goodness, and also a symbol of fairness and order. As contemporary law students, we must not only have enriched knowledge base, but also developed the professional qualities. The simulated trial activities allowed the students to experience different forms of legal professions and go through the whole procedure of handling case. After that, students get to sense that as legal professional, “we are not actually dealing with cases, but the lives of other people”. Only when feeling and cultivating the humane judicial values, can we learn to enforce the law with sensibility and deal with cases with warmth. Only in this way, can we place us in the role of both prosecutors of criminal suspect, and protectors of innocent citizens, and more importantly, champions of the progress of rule of law and the practitioner of humanity in justice.