Chapter 167 - 107: High Praise from the Bureau of Justice

A spot check...

Generally, to ensure fairness and impartiality, the Judicial Bureau would occasionally conduct random spot checks on some of the ballots, examining the written reasons to confirm their legitimacy.

But in practice, they never did impromptu checks.

Unless...

A situation like the current one arose!

They’ve improved... but this is just too much!!!

Inside the conference room.

It wasn’t just Zhang Jianguo. Even the directors of the various district and county Judicial Bureaus had realized the problem. Hesitation appeared on their faces, their expressions frozen as they eyed each other with suspicion.

This was especially true for Zhuangluo District and Nanshan District.

Seeing such a huge increase in their satisfaction ratings this year, the directors from these two districts had been planning on showing off a little, flaunting their achievements in front of their old colleagues.

But how...

How did *you* improve so much too!?

It would be normal for one person’s ratings to improve.

But for everyone’s to be like this... was just a little too strange.

’Such a huge increase across the board? Every single district’s satisfaction rating is over 90%!’

Zhang Jianguo’s heart grew heavy.

"A spot check! Li, pull sixteen ballots each from Zhuangluo District and Nanshan District!"

His gaze immediately shifted to the directors of Zhuangluo and Nanshan Districts, fixing on the yellow manila envelopes in front of them.

The two directors hesitated for a moment but nodded nonetheless.

The staff member named Li walked over.

"RIP!"

The envelope was torn open, revealing a stack of documents. Hearing the sound, everyone in the room tensed up.

RUSTLE, RUSTLE, RUSTLE...

Li began to inspect the ballots.

Seeing this,

Zhang Jianguo’s brow furrowed as he let out a breath, his mind racing.

The Judicial Bureau’s key performance review was based on these satisfaction ratings. This didn’t just apply to his subordinates; even he, the director, was evaluated on this metric!

Unfortunately, in this regard, the Judicial Bureau had always been a point-loser.

Why?

Because a district Judicial Bureau’s satisfaction rating was incredibly difficult to raise compared to, say, the courts.

For the courts, all they had to do was win a few cases.

The Judicial Bureau, to put it simply, managed the local judicial environment. You could think of it as "lawyers + legal education."

But here was the problem.

Lawyers played a negligible role in court; in criminal cases, they were practically invisible!

And legal education? You only had to look at how hard it was to promote anti-fraud apps in later years to understand.

Even with universal compulsory education and everyone having a degree, people still fell for scams, and after getting scammed, they’d turn around and curse the Judicial Bureau for not stopping it. What was the Judicial Bureau supposed to do?

So...

Every time the city held its "Public Opinion Review and Summary Conference," Zhang Jianguo could barely hold his head high.

If this year’s city-wide votes turned out to be fraudulent...

Then Zhang Jianguo would absolutely be held responsible!

But...

"Director, there’s no problem with the ballots."

The staff member Li had randomly checked nearly 20 ballots, and after finishing, he looked at Zhang Jianguo with a puzzled expression.

The two words fell.

"No problem!?"

Zhang Jianguo was, contrary to his expectations, stunned.

If Li had said he’d found problematic ballots, that would have been expected.

But for there to be *no* problem... that was completely unexpected!

"Check Yansun County and Linhe County as well," Zhang Jianguo ordered.

As he spoke, Li went over to conduct another spot check.

But the result was still...

"No problem. They’re all legitimate ballots," Li said with a nod.

’All of them are legitimate?’

Now,

it was Zhang Jianguo’s turn to be at a loss. He just sat there, stunned.

’Since when... did the Judicial Bureau have such a good reputation among the public!?’

After a long silence...

Zhang Jianguo said, "Let’s have everyone deliver their work reports."

This overall increase in satisfaction couldn’t have just appeared out of thin air. There had to be a reason!

The work reports would allow them to follow the clues and uncover the cause.

But as for the reason...

The director of the Nanshan District Judicial Bureau hesitated, looking like he wanted to say something, before finally speaking up.

"Director Zhang, during the resident satisfaction survey in Nanshan District... the reason our staff heard most often was... because of a certain lawyer in Nanshan District."

A lawyer?

Hearing this, Zhang Jianguo paused, his brow furrowing.

Before he could speak,

the director of Zhuangluo District to his side also showed a look of surprise.

"A lawyer? You guys too? Because of two cases!?"

As these words were spoken,

it was as if a single stone had set off a thousand ripples. The tension in the conference room instantly dissipated, replaced by looks of astonishment as everyone glanced at each other.

"You too!?"

"Huh?"

Now, it was Zhang Jianguo who felt like he was being kept in the dark. He frowned.

"What lawyer?"

The director of the Nanshan District Judicial Bureau said,

"While our staff were conducting surveys and collecting ballots from the neighborhood offices, the phrase they heard most often was ’the Judicial Bureau kept a lawyer for Lusen City.’ Every time it was mentioned, it was with the highest of praise."

"And anyone who mentioned it didn’t just vote ’Basically Satisfied’; they voted ’Extremely Satisfied’."

The satisfaction ballots had different tiers.

Although they all counted the same, you could tell whether the person was just being perfunctory or was genuinely satisfied.

"This lawyer handled two cases."

"Specifically, the ’Li Family Village Case’ and the ’No. 18 Middle School Case’. It was because of these two cases... that the enthusiasm for voting was so high."

"After the No. 18 Middle School Case, that lawyer was interviewed and said that because of Jinmao Law Firm, he had originally planned to move to Yanjing to advance his career."

The Nanshan District director continued,

"But later, after Director Yang heard about him, he personally went to persuade him to stay."

"He was given some policy support, and that’s what made him decide to open a law firm in Nanshan District and stay!"

"So, when the Judicial Bureau went to collect the ballots later, there was basically no one who was dissatisfied..."

As he finished speaking,

others in the conference room chimed in, confirming that their own investigations had yielded the same results.

The reason their satisfaction ratings weren’t as high as Nanshan District’s was because Xu De had decided to establish his firm in Nanshan, not in their own districts.

At this moment, Deputy Director Yang Guotao was also slightly taken aback, raising an eyebrow.