Retired College Teacher Forced to Return Nearly Half a Million Yuan of Pension Funds After Being Wrongfully Imprisoned

(Minghui.org) A Huaian City, Jiangsu Province resident lost two lawsuits against her and was forced to pay back nearly half million yuan of pension benefits to her former employer and the local social security insurance center. Ms. Wang Jingling was targeted because she was once imprisoned for upholding her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. 

Ms. Wang, a retired employee of Huaiyin Institute of Technology, was arrested on May 27, 2012 after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. She was later sentenced to three years and released in 2015. 

Pension Suspended

In November 2019, Ms. Wang’s family received a call from Guan Yonggang, the deputy director of her school’s HR department. Guan claimed that they would begin to suspend Ms. Wang’s pension in December 2019 due to her prison sentence. He also demanded that she pay back the 351,439.45 yuan pension she has received from the school since June 2012, the month after her arrest. 

After the school suspended Ms. Wang’s pension in December 2019, Ms. Wang went to the school in hopes to talk to Guan and the school president in person, but to no avail. She later managed to have an in-person meeting with the director of the HR department and the vice president. She also gave each of them a letter, in which she detailed how she recovered from a brain injury she suffered at work and repaired her relationship with her mother-in-law after she started practicing Falun Gong. She also talked about the lack of legal basis for the persecution and the wrongful prison sentence against her. 

In response to her letter, the school leadership insisted that their decision was purely based on her prison sentence and they repeatedly asked her to return the 351,439.45 yuan she received from the school between June 2012 and November 2019. The school also limited their communication with Ms. Wang to phone calls and never issued any formal document. 

In January 2020, only four days before the Chinese New Year, Guan called Ms. Wang and said she had deceived the school into issuing her pension benefits. He threatened to file a criminal case against her if she didn’t return the funds.

1^st Lawsuit

Ms. Wang received another call from Xie Xiaobin, the attorney representing the school, in May 2020. Xie told Ms. Wang that the school has filed a lawsuit against her and the Qingjiangpu District Court has frozen her apartment (meaning that she could still live in it but was deprived of the right to transfer ownership). 

Ms. Wang then went to the court to inquire about the case. She learned that the school also named her husband as a co-defendant in its lawsuit filed in January 2020, on the grounds that her pension fund was part of the community property in her marriage to her husband so he should be jointly responsible for repaying the money. It became clear to Ms. Wang that the school knew all too well that she didn’t have the money to repay the funds since her own pension has already been suspended but that they wanted to tap into her husband’s pension and other income.

The school also cited a notice issued by the Ministry of Human Resources in 2012, “The Notice of Wage Handling of Institutional Workers Who Have Been Subjected to Compulsory Measures and Administrative or Criminal Punishment,” as the legal basis for their lawsuit. 

To protect her own rights, Ms. Wang hired an attorney to represent her.

While waiting for the judge to come during the court hearing on June 19, 2020, the school’s attorney Xie said to Ms. Wang, “Let me tell you, if you don’t pay the money soon, you won’t be able to keep your apartment.”

During the hearing, Ms. Wang testified how she has benefited from practicing Falun Gong and that it’s her constitutional right to freedom of belief to practice Falun Gong. She said the authorities simply can’t suspend her pension because she has been wrongfully sentenced for her faith.

Ms. Wang’s husband pointed out that his wife’s pension is their private property and it’s unconstitutional for the authorities to suspend her pension arbitrarily.

When judge Li Hongchang asked Xie whether he wanted to respond to Ms. Wang and her husband’s defense statements, Xie replied, “Let me go back and think about it.” 

The judge issued the verdict in early August, ordering Ms. Wang to return 351,439.45 yuan to her school. The judge also cited a notice issued by the Ministry of Human Resources on November 23, 1999, which stated that “Employees of the government agencies and institutions will have their pension suspended while being incarcerated.”

Ms. Wang appealed the decision with Huaian City Intermediate Court. Judge Li Qianbing upheld the original ruling without a hearing.

2^nd Lawsuit 

Shortly after, Xie also filed another lawsuit with the Qingjiangpu District Court against Ms. Wang, this time representing the Jiangsu Province Social Security Insurance Center for Government Agencies and Institutions. This lawsuit sought to have Ms. Wang return 139,666.70 yuan social security income she had received from the plaintiff between November 2017 and November 2019, though it was not clear why the plaintiff targeted the said two-year period. 

The judge ruled in favor of the social security insurance center as well.

Forced to Pay Huge Sum for Doing Nothing Wrong

With her losing both lawsuits, Ms. Wang was forced to pay a total of 496,264.40 yuan: 351,439.45 yuan to her school; 139,666.70 yuan to the social security insurance center; and 5158.25 yuan to cover the two plaintiffs’ litigation cost and the court’s cost to manage her apartment when it was being frozen by the court.

During Ms. Wang’s interactions with the two judges, Li Chongchang from the first hearing and Li Qianbing from the second both expressed their sympathy for her, but they still ruled against her. Ms. Wang said it’s sad that judges don’t have the right to independently determine cases but are just rubber-stamps for the government.

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Guan Yonggang (管勇刚), Deputy Director of HR Department of Huaiyin Institute of Technology: [phone]Xie Xiaobin (谢晓斌), Attorney at Huaiyin Institute of Technology: [phone]Li Hongchang (李洪昌), judge, first hearing: [phone]Li Qianbing (李前兵), judge, second hearing: [phone]