When the Chongqing court handed down a ruling to compensate the families of three schoolgirls who died in a horrific traffic accident, they did not realize the eruption it would cause within the community.
　　Two of the girls were city residents and their families each received more than 200,000 yuan in compensation. The family of the third victim, a country girl named He Yuan, received only 90,000 yuan.
　　In China, the household registration system, with a history of over 50 years, divides the population into urban and rural residents. In general, household registration of a rural resident will not be changed even if the person moves to a city. This is the reason He Yuan was still registered in a rural area, despite having lived in the city with her parents for many years.
　　In China today there are two standards of compensation paid out to urban and rural residents in the event of death.
　　According to the interpretation of the Supreme People"s Court of the law on compensation for personal injury, which came into effect on May 1, 2005, death compensation for an urban resident amounts to 20 times the average annual per-capita disposable income of urban employees, while that for a rural resident is 20 times the annual per-capita net income of rural dwellers in the place where the court handling the case is located.
　　The disparity has led to unease and dissatisfaction among the public about the interpretation of this law, as currently not all death compensations follow the household registration process. For example, in air crashes or coalmine tragedies, death compensations are the same for all victims.
　　Should all accidental death victims be compensated equally? Some people believe that all lives are equally valuable and therefore should be equally compensated. They say the current legislation clearly discriminates as it advocates the principle that all are not equal in the eyes of the law. Others argue that there are historical and practical reasons for the present laws, and compensating everyone equally will lead to a different form of injustice.
　　
　　Equal compensation
　　
　　Wang Lin (lecturer at the Law School of Hainan University): To give different compensation to people involved in the same accident is unacceptable! I think that in terms of death compensation standards, there is evidence of discrimination in the present legal provisions. It is true that incomes of urban and rural residents are different, but there are other points that need to be considered. He Yuan’s parents reminded us that their daughter had lived in the city for more than 10 years and went to the same school as urban children. “Why didn’t the school charge less tuition fees because of her rural household registration?” “Did she pay any less when shopping?” “Is there any difference between the costs of nurturing our children?” “Is there any difference in the children’s contribution to society when they grow up?” These were the questions asked by He’s parents. They all ring true.
　　If compensation were decided by social status, could we draw the conclusion that a cadre would get more compensation than a worker after death? Using this logic, let’s assume there was a traffic accident, and an urban resident and a rural resident were waiting to be rescued. If only one person could be rescued, then here it would be the urban resident.
　　Hu Qingzhi and Zhaoshuqing (lawyers in Chengdu, Sichuan Province): It is against the Constitution and the General Principles of the Civil Law to stipulate different compensation standards to urban and rural residents.
　　Article 33 of the Constitution says, “All citizens of the People’s Republic of China are equal before the law.” Article 10 of the General Principles of the Civil Law stipulates, “All citizens are equal as regards their civil rights.”
　　Equal civil rights mean not only the equal right to get compensation, but also to get the same compensation. The present judicial interpretation is against this principle.
　　We have written to the National People’s Congress to launch a constitutional review on this judicial interpretation.
　　Li Kejie (freelancer): The earliest provisions on death compensation are in the Law on State Compensation formulated in 1994. Article 27 of the law says that where death is caused, financial compensation and funeral expenses shall be paid and the total amount shall be 20 times as much as the average annual salary of employees in the preceding year. The Law on State Compensation does not differentiate between urban and rural residents, so on what grounds did the Supreme People’s Court come up with different compensation standards between urban and rural residents?
　　Compared with other accidents, different compensation standards in traffic accidents are unfair. For example, in coalmine accidents, every victim will get compensation of at least 200,000 yuan, irrespective of where they live. There is also no such difference in the compensation of air crash victims.
　　Yang Lixin (professor at the Law School of Renmin University): Does death compensation just compensate for property damages of the dead? I don’t think so! It should compensate for the value of life. This means what the life was worth to the person had they lived.
　　For example, the average life expectancy in a province is 79 years. If a person dies because of an accident at the age of 14, the life expectancy would be 65 years and subsequently that should be the period for compensation. This way everyone would be compensated equally.
　　Moreover, I want to question the period of compensated years stipulated by the present law. Why is it only 20 years? If a person dies at 58, it is reasonable to compensate the deceased for 20 years. But if the victims are children, like the case of these three girls who died at 14, it is obviously unreasonable just compensating them for 20 years.
　　Ren Jin (professor in the Law Department of the China National School of Administration): The equality of the right to life should be reflected by the same death compensation showing that the value of all life is equal. The world is full of changes and no one can predict the future. A pupil may become another Bill Gates. The income someone could earn in his or her future is difficult to calculate. There is no clear way to measure this form of compensation. Therefore, since we cannot calculate this figure exactly, stipulating the same compensation standards better reflects the constitutional principle of equality.
　　
　　Present law
　　
　　Shi Jichun (professor at the Law School of Renmin University): It is misleading to draw the conclusion that there are different prices for the same lives, just because different compensation is being paid for victims in the same accident.
　　First, lives and bodies cannot be measured in money terms. Compensation is the value of labor rather than human life. Labor prices differ greatly. In the United States, compensation for a girl who died in a fire may reach $4 billion. In some rural areas of China, the average annual per-capita income is only 1,000 yuan. Compensation of 50,000 yuan in areas of low living standards may be more effective than 500,000 yuan in developed cities.
　　It is common practice in the world to pay different compensation based on different labor rates. The Supreme People’s Court referred to this in drawing its interpretation.
　　Zhang Qianfan (professor at the Law School of Peking University): Everyone is equal but equality does not mean the same thing. Lives are equal in status but there are differences in professions, potential and so on. Death compensation should be the income for the rest of that victim’s natural life, so it is possible that the compensation will differ. But considering social fairness, the law stipulates the highest and lowest limits for compensation, however poor or rich the victims may have been.
　　Lin Zhe (professor at the Central Party School): Equality is one of the basic human rights, but equality is not absolute. History has left us with the differences between urban and rural areas and between different regions, and judicial departments cannot abolish these differences. Under these circumstances, pursuing absolute equality for victim compensation will lead to real inequality.
　　Compensating the families of the dead means to compensate the losses they may suffer from the death, so that the consequences of the death may be lessened. This needs calculation of the losses which must be related to the income and living costs in the locality where the accident occurs. The actual differences between incomes and living costs in urban and rural areas lead to legal provisions of different compensation standards, according to different household registration, but it does not mean to discriminate between groups of people.
　　Of course the present compensation system needs to be perfected, considering both regional differences and the actual losses of the victims’ families.
　　Sheng Dalin (Chief Commentator of Dahe Daily in Henan): It is unfair to compensate differently for the same lives, but is it fair to compensate equally?
　　In fact, compensating according to per-capita income and years of expected labor is commonly adopted in civil compensation cases. There are large differences between China’s urban and rural areas in various aspects. The cost of living is much higher in urban areas when compared to rural areas. This means it would be unfair to compensate victims equally if they came from different areas of residence. Another problem is that China has never publicized a uniform per-capita income standard covering both urban and rural areas. How would this be calculated? Even with such a standard, compensation could be higher for rural victims and lower for urban victims.
　　In theory, it is unfair to compensate differently for the same lives, but in reality, it is also unfair to compensate equally for the same lives. The difference between urban and rural areas creates a dilemma for the justice system. Neither choice is fair. The only way to fundamentally solve this problem is to improve urban and rural development and eliminate the difference.
　　
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