Guoliang Sulaiman, a prominent member of the ruling elite in the south of China who heads the National Development and Reform Commission.

According to an article in the official Daily China newspaper, Mr. Guoliang is already a member of the powerful National People’s Congress (NPC), the upper house of China’s parliament.

While the NPC does have direct power over the president, it wields little clout over Chinese courts. A Chinese law professor at Duke University, for instance, said an NPC deputy general counsellor would be able to dismiss all court decisions by court clerks.

And while the NPC could dismiss those in its ranks who violate the criminal code, it can’t revoke them from office.

So who would be nominated for the position?

The answer, as a Hong Kong law professor at the College of Hong Kong told CNN, could be “someone close to the leadership. They like to say someone ‘has not made clear’ but [the person is] a good ‘person who can talk on the phone’ or they just want to be able to get to the bottom of what is going on.”

Another possibility: A Chinese official would call the NPC for guidance or advice to find someone of good character to replace Wang, a reformer and former professor of economics at Peking University and current vice chair of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. The most likely candidate is Mr. Guoliang, who has also served as chairman of the NDF.

Another name that has emerged in connection with Wang has been Wang Yongqing, who has been deputy chief executive of Beijing’s Liaoning province and deputy prime minister of the People’s Republic of China.

Wang’s name, while not high profile, has been circulating internationally for years, and is not unknown in China and the U.S. A name that has seen repeated attention in recent months.

A recent article that appeared in China Daily, for example, reported that Wang helped Chinese scientists win a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2007 and was named vice chair of the Chinese Academy of Sciences last year.

Wang’s connections to Mr. Wang should not be discounted, the professor said.

“All of these people are the best people to run one of the most powerful ministries of government in modern China,” said the academic, who adds that Wang “is the most likely person to be a key NPC director.”

But