China News Service, Beijing, August 9 (Reporter Zhang Su) Zhang Yuhuan, who was detained for nearly 27 years and sentenced to death with a suspended death sentence for intentional homicide, was recently acquitted. Almost at the same time, Wu Chunhong, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for intentional homicide and commuted not guilty after being detained for nearly 16 years, received a national compensation decision from the Henan Higher People's Court. As a result, issues such as state compensation and accountability after correction of unjust, false and wrong cases have attracted attention.
While the Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court revoked the original judgment, the relevant person in charge apologized to Zhang Yuhuan on behalf of the court and informed him of the right to apply for state compensation. The Higher People's Court of Henan Province made a national compensation decision against Wu Chunhong, with a total amount of more than 2.62 million yuan (RMB, the same below), of which more than 1.94 million yuan was for infringement of personal freedom and 680,000 yuan for mental damage.
The current State Compensation Law was promulgated in 1994, and the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress revised it twice in 2010 and 2012. In practice, there are also legal basis such as "Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Compensation Cases", and "Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Mental Damage Compensation in the Trial of State Compensation Cases by the People's Court Compensation Committee." From 2014 to 2018, courts at all levels across the country concluded 83,315 state compensation cases.
Zhai Jiguang, executive deputy secretary-general of the Finance and Taxation Law Research Association of the Chinese Law Society, cited the above-mentioned legal documents during the interview and pointed out that for violations of citizens' personal freedom, the daily compensation is calculated according to the national average daily salary of employees in the previous year. The average daily salary of employees in 2019 is 346.75. Zhang Yuhuan can obtain more than 3.39 million yuan in compensation for infringement of citizens’ personal freedom; in principle, the mental damage compensation shall not exceed 35% of the total personal freedom compensation and life and health compensation. The specific case is 119 Ten thousand yuan.
The Zhang Yuhuan case retrial defense lawyer Wang Fei said that the amount of state compensation for the case has not yet been determined. Wu Chunhong's family members and their lawyers expressed dissatisfaction with the state compensation made by the Henan High Court, saying that they would apply to the Supreme People's Court Compensation Committee for a compensation decision within the statutory time limit.
The focus around state compensation is who will pay for it. Zhai Jiguang replied that Article 37 of the National Compensation Law stipulates that compensation costs should be included in the fiscal budgets at all levels. Since most of the budget revenue comes from taxes, it can also be considered that the national compensation costs are borne by all taxpayers. Taxpayers can require civil servants who are at fault to bear responsibility. Article 16 of the National Compensation Law states that after compensating the agency responsible for compensation, it shall order the staff or the entrusted organization or individual who has been deliberate or grossly negligent to bear part or all of the compensation costs. .
The law also stipulates that for persons responsible for deliberate or gross negligence, relevant agencies shall impose sanctions in accordance with the law; if a crime is constituted, criminal responsibility shall be investigated in accordance with the law.
"I ask the judiciary to pursue the criminal responsibility of the persons who'extracted confessions by torture'." Zhang Yuhuan said to the camera. Wang Fei also stated that the next step will be to initiate related accountability work based on the entrustment of the parties. In fact, they used to apply for the exclusion of illegal evidence on the grounds that Zhang Yuhuan was tortured by the public security organs during the retrial of the case. After deliberation, the collegiate panel found that the clues and materials provided by Zhang Yuhuan and his defense lawyer were not sufficient and decided not to initiate the non-exclusion procedure.
"Twenty-six years have passed, even if the facts of torture were used to extract a confession at that time, would this crime still be pursued?" Luo Xiang, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice of China University of Political Science and Law, wrote an analysis and said that based on past judicial practice, the answer is probably "no." . In some similar cases, even if the existence of torture is found, the judicial organs will stop prosecuting the confession because the statute of limitations has passed.
However, Wang Fei cited Hebei's "Liao Haijun case" as an example, saying that "long time should not become an obstacle to accountability." Liao Haijun, who had been wronged for nearly 20 years, was sentenced to not guilty in August 2018, and then submitted to the Tangshan Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision a statement of accountability and evidence against the personnel who handled the case that year. In August 2019, Zhang Baoxiang, the policeman handling the case and the former head of the Criminal Police Brigade of the Tangshan Qianxi Public Security Bureau, was transferred to the Lubei District Supervisory Committee of Tangshan City for review and prosecution for allegedly extracting a confession by torture. The commentary believes that the initiation of criminal accountability for those who torture a confession is of landmark significance.
At the National Judicial System Reform Promotion Conference held in 2016, the Central Political and Legal Committee clearly released the signal of "adhere to the combination of accountability and exemption, and improve the judicial accountability system." Luo Xiang also said that the prohibition of torture is mainly because it is procedurally unjust, not just because it may lead to unjust, false and wrongful cases. If you ignore the procedural rules and pursue substantive justice, then justice may be achieved in a certain case, but "tragedies similar to the Zhang Yuhuan case will continue to repeat itself."
How to avoid similar tragedies from happening again? Wang Enhai, a professor of criminal law at East China University of Political Science and Law, pointed out that from media reports, most of the causes of unjust, false and wrong cases were to extract confessions by torture. From a legislative point of view, China has formed a relatively complete mechanism to prevent torture and extortion of confessions. However, it is difficult to achieve the goal of good law and good governance by relying solely on legislation.
Wang Fei believes that we must start from two aspects to prevent torture. One is to strictly hold accountability for those who extract confessions by torture in accordance with the existing system, and to make them pay the price for their illegal activities; the other is to improve system guarantees, such as "the right of presence of lawyers should be granted during the investigation of investigators."
Many members of the legal profession pointed out that preventing torture from extorting confessions is not a blow to judicial personnel's enthusiasm for handling cases. Emphasis on handling cases in accordance with the law also fundamentally protects judicial personnel. In addition, the structure of criminal litigation is strong in investigation and weak in trial, which makes it difficult for the Public Prosecutor’s Department to form effective restraints, which in turn leads to insufficient rectification capabilities when facing unjust, false and wrong cases. The key to resolving unjust, false and wrong cases is to continue to promote the reform of the judicial system to achieve fairness and justice in a complete sense, so that the people can feel fairness and justice in every judicial case. (Finish)