|
|
Outcome of Deng Yujiao
Case Encourages Some, Alarms Others
On June 16, a county court in
Hubei Province held a criminal trial in a case that for weeks had been
the focus of considerable attention and controversy throughout China. On
the docket was the case of a 21-year-old hotel waitress named Deng
Yujiao (邓玉娇), alleged to have stabbed a local county official to
death during a struggle that reportedly began when the official demanded
sex from her. On the Internet—in blogs, chat rooms, and bulletin board
posts—people rallied to Deng’s support, scrutinizing every move of
police investigators for hints of a cover-up and demanding that she
receive a fair trial.
Deng’s case is but the latest in a series of high-profile causes
célèbres in which public sympathy is generated for ordinary
“underdogs” who have lashed out in one way or another against corruption
or abuses of power carried out by officials. Last year saw a similar
response to the case of Yang Jia (杨佳), who was eventually
executed for stabbing six Shanghai policemen in a bloody attack
reportedly carried out in revenge over a savage beating by public
security officers. After Deng Yujiao’s case was discussed widely on the
Internet and even in official mainstream media, the outpouring of
support for her and especially the calumny heaped on officials like the
one who allegedly attacked her appear to have become too much for the
authorities, who began shutting down channels for discussion as the
trial neared.
After a hurried hearing, the Badong County People’s Court convicted Deng
Yujiao on the charge of injury with intent, but ruled that she had acted
in self-defense—though her actions were deemed to have been excessive
under the circumstances. Because she was also determined to have reduced
criminal responsibility for her actions (because of reported psychiatric
illness) and had voluntarily turned herself in to police, the court
decided to exempt her from criminal punishment.
The court’s decision was hailed by many, particularly in the foreign
press, as a “victory for online opinion” and a potential “catalyst for
social change.” In this view, such incidents, particularly when spread
over the Internet, create opportunities for ordinary Chinese to express
their opinions, assert their interest in public affairs, and demand
accountability from government officials. As Wu Gan, a blogger who
helped bring Deng Yujiao’s case to light, put it in
an interview: “The
final judgment conformed to justice and to public opinion.”
Compared to those who viewed the Deng Yujiao case primarily as a
positive example of public opinion being mobilized on behalf of justice,
the response from observers of China’s legal system was more ambivalent.
Pu Zhiqiang, a veteran rights lawyer in Beijing, welcomed the court’s
decision but told the South China Morning Post that it “reflected
a limited victory for public opinion, but definitely not a victory for
the law.” Weaknesses in China’s legal procedures can be a problem in any
criminal case, but their influence is felt even more profoundly in
major, important cases like Deng’s, where there is great public
interest.
Pointing to some of the procedural problems in Deng Yujiao’s case,
Chinese legal experts interviewed by the Guangzhou-based weekly
newspaper Southern Weekend
(Chinese only) argued that one could not judge
whether justice had been done by simply looking at the outcome. They
noted that Chinese law places serious restrictions on the ability of
defense lawyers to conduct their own investigations and collect evidence
during the crucial early stages of a case, giving police a substantial
advantage in determining what evidence does or does not appear at trial.
Xiao Han, an assistant professor at the China University of Politics and
Law in Beijing, told an interviewer: “When the rights of prosecution and
defense are not equal, the direct result is that investigators can
select evidence according to their own needs, without any oversight over
the selection process.” In Deng’s case, this resulted in the destruction
of evidence that could have been crucial to proving defense claims that
Deng had been the victim of a sexual assault.
The experts also raised questions about Deng’s mother’s decision to
dismiss her daughter’s Beijing-based defense team—a decision that some
critics allege was made under pressure from local officials. Noting
similarities to the Yang Jia case—in which there was also a controversy
over which lawyer was authorized to provide defense—Renmin University
criminal procedure expert Chen Weidong notes, “These cases seem to have
a common pattern: Beijing lawyers are not welcome.” Any use of such
pressure to get defendants to drop qualified defense lawyers in favor of
more pliable local attorneys would be a major infringement of a
defendant’s rights and threatens to further tilt the balance of power
toward the prosecution.
Allowing public opinion to have too much influence over the judicial
process, as appears to have happened in the Deng Yujiao case, can have
negative consequences—especially when China lacks adequate laws and
institutions to protect the rights of criminal defendants and their
defense lawyers. It is important to allow public opinion to be heard,
but the strengthening of legal procedures is the key to developing
long-lasting institutions that will truly enable Chinese courts to
promote justice, argues Yi Yanyou of Qinghua University: “Their handling
of the substance [of a case] might be correct and proper . . . but the
problem is that substantive justice is not easily seen, whereas
procedural justice is visible justice. If one does not act according to
procedure—even if there is no problem with the substance—it will cause
people to have doubts.” ■
|
Print
this article