In the judgment of a case involving the death of a teenage girl,
a Beijing court sympathized with the sufferings of the victim's
family. The girl was killed by a bus conductor.
It was the first time such sympathy had been expressed.
Normally, judgments are delivered in a matter-of-fact way and in
neutral terms. The judgment caused widespread concern and some
controversy.
In the opinion of this writer, this change is of great
significance. It is a breakthrough from the long-standing mistaken
concept about the law and heralds a return to the correct
understanding of the essence of the law.
On October 4, 2005, Yan, a 74-year-old university professor and
his wife and 14-year-old daughter had a quarrel with a conductor in
a Beijing bus. The conductor attacked the girl and she fell
unconscious. The girl died in hospital the next day.
In May last year the Haidian court heard the case and sentenced
the conductor to death with a two-year reprieve and ordered the bus
company to pay the victim's family 100,000 yuan ($13,158) in
compensation for "psychological suffering". Professor Yan lodged an
appeal for more compensation, accusing the bus driver and another
conductor of refusing to take the girl to a hospital and driving
away leaving the Yans behind.
The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People Court gave the final
judgment last week, changing the compensation to 300,000 yuan
($39,474). In a statement explaining the increase, the court said:
"The Yans saw their daughter being killed; they witnessed the whole
process of their daughter's death. What agony it must have been to
watch a life withering in an instant, the life of a loved one."
These words expressing sorrow and anguish for a brutally
deprived life are new to us who have been accustomed to unrelenting
legal texts. The words are also a consolation to any person
affected by the case.
For many years, our society has become more and more
knowledgeable about legal affairs; but at the same time, our sense
of justice and sympathy seem to have been eroded by subconsciously
dodging legal responsibility and the true meaning of the rule of
law.
"The law is merciless," is a most frequently quoted saying. It
has led people to mistakenly think it is separated from feelings of
righteousness. We have become used to the understanding that such
emotions as indignation, sorrow and compassion should not exist in
legal cases, especially not in judiciary and law enforcement
personnel.
This is a misunderstanding. Judiciary and law enforcement
personnel must have a very strong sense of justice to guarantee
they work efficiently to maintain social justice and fairness.
Of course, they must respect the facts, be impartial and get rid
of any possible prejudice when investigating and judging cases and
executing laws. This, however, does not mean that they should not
hold their points of view about what is right and wrong, and that
they should be apathetic toward such things as crime, humiliation,
and mental agony.
It is true they should not let their feelings influence the
facts of a case or judgments. But they must have a strong desire to
uphold justice, to punish the wrongdoer and console the
aggrieved.
In fact, it is the lack of a sense of justice and sympathy for
victims that some judiciary and law enforcement personnel have
shown little interest in the cases they handle. They are not only
failing to deliver justice but are also causing the public's
confidence in social fairness to wane. And this is the most
terrible thing that can happen.
(China Daily December 5, 2007)