Hard to believe, but yes, the Shanzhai culture has reached down to the local court system. Forged documents are nothing new; we’ve all seen stories about fake diplomas, plagiarized academic papers, and fake corporate seals.

You don’t like that court judgment? Replace it with a better one. Certainly makes sense. Details from China Daily:

Forgery of a verdict? Yes, and even by a local court itself.

The bizarre case happened at the Weibin District People’s Court in Xinxiang of central China’s Henan province, the Zhengzhou-based Dahe Daily reported on Monday.

The report said the verdict forgery was found in March this year when the Xinxiang Municipal Intermediate People’s Court retried a civil case.

On Feb 11, 2009, the Xinxiang court upheld a verdict by the Weibin court in which Maofeng Company Ltd won a suit against the Pingyuan Theatre for failing to fulfill a contractual agreement, the report said.

The first verdict came on May 21, 2008.

But two months later, the defendant, the Pingyuan Theatre, appealed to the Henan Provincial Higher People’s Court with another verdict issued by Weibin District People’s Court on the same suit.

The second verdict, dated January 2008, ruled that the Pinyuang Theatre won the case, totally contradicting the content of the original verdict issued on May 21, 2008, the report said.

Only when the Henan Provincial Higher People’s Court ordered a retrial of the case in March this year did Maofeng Company Ltd learn there are two completely different verdicts for the same case, but both having official seals, according to the report.

The next question of course is whodunit? It should come as no surprise that this was an inside job. The investigation so far has revealed that the chop/seal on the forgery was genuine. Next step (cue dramatic music): who had access to the court’s chop?

As this might be the pinnacle of shanzhai culture, the story deserves a novel-length treatment from one of those “true crime” guys, like a Joe McGinniss type. From there, we’ll get either a tv movie on a 3rd tier cable channel or a straight-to-DVD flick. I’m liking Jackie Chan as the goofy-yet-sly police investigator.