Thursday 18 June 2009

Legal experts worried by decision to free waitress

Hotel waitress Deng Yujiao has walked out of a courtroom in Hubei a free woman after killing an official, but she is paying a price and so is the country’s rule of law, warned mainland lawyers and rights groups.

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Legal experts worried by decision to free waitress

Ng Tze-wei
18 June 2009

Hotel waitress Deng Yujiao has walked out of a courtroom in Hubei a free woman after killing an official, but she is paying a price and so is the country’s rule of law, warned mainland lawyers and rights groups.

Ms. Deng and her family apparently wanted the matter settled, according to mainland media, but chat-room discussions have not abated. Many thought her family was being coerced into expressing gratitude in a government-directed drama, some urged her to appeal and others questioned the legality of the judgment.

Legal experts pointed out many irregularities in how her case was handled from the outset. First the police investigated her for murder despite the question of rape, and then prosecutors charged her - and the court agreed - with intentionally causing bodily harm. Meanwhile, she was diagnosed by authorities as suffering from “a certain degree of mental disorder”.

The trial on Tuesday in Badong county lasted 2-1/2 hours. Ms. Deng was allowed to go free because of three mitigating factors: she was acting in self-defence, although with excessive force; she had turned herself in; and she had limited criminal liability because of the mental disorder.

On May 10, Deng Guida , visiting the hotel where Ms. Deng worked, demanded the waitress have sex with him, slapped her face with a wad of banknotes and pushed her onto a sofa twice when she refused. In the struggle, Ms. Deng took a fruit knife from her handbag, killed Deng and injured one of his colleagues.

Under the mainland’s criminal code, a person who kills someone who is trying to rape them is acting in self-defence and will not face charges. But police and prosecutors had ruled out rape or attempted rape from the beginning.

It remained unclear how the verdict would impact on Ms. Deng’s life in the long-term, said Li Ying , deputy director of Peking University’s Women’s Law Studies and Legal Aid Centre.

“She now carries two mountains on her shoulders: a criminal conviction and a record of being mentally ill,” she said. “The full impact of these two mountains on the rest of her life is still unknown. What do you expect a girl to think when a man lunges at her? It is a situation dangerous enough to entitle her to unrestricted self-defence,” Ms. Li said. She worried Ms. Deng’s conviction might set a bad precedent for women who find themselves in similar situations.

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences law professor Liu Renwen also disapproved of the decision, pointing out that the criminal code stated intentional harm that resulted in death meant a minimum sentence of 10 years.

“After all, there was one death and one injured victim,” he said. “It is unsatisfactory when we don’t know how exactly these three mitigating factors led to a complete exemption from punishment.”

Veteran rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang said the case “reflected a limited victory for public opinion, but definitely not a victory for the law”.

“In a court of law, the lawyers should be able to debate the evidence, to examine the parties, the witnesses, and be able to get to the bottom as to whether there was attempted rape or enough violence to cause such an impression,” he said. “However, these all were avoided in the hearing. It’s like the actual case itself was not important. What was important was to achieve a result acceptable by all sides.”

Mr. Pu said judicial authority had been absent throughout the case.

“It has been reduced to a tool of those in power,” he said. “Even Deng did not thank the court.”