by Xinhua writers Cheng Zhuo, Li Huizi
BEIJING, April 29 (Xinhua) -- China's parliament Thursday adopted amendments to the State Compensation Law that grant citizens greater power to obtain compensation when their rights are violated by the state.
The amendments, to take effect on Dec. 1, were approved at the end of the four-day bimonthly session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, or the top legislature.
When a citizen is harmed through state negligence, the state will compensate the citizen, according to the amendments which expand the scope of state compensation, China University of Political Science and Law Prof. Ma Huaide said.
In the previous law, state compensation would only be granted when state organs violated the law, excluding cases of negligence.
Zhang Gang, a lawyer at Beijing-based law firm Haodong, said state negligence is currently a major defense for administrative and judicial organs to deny liability and prevent victims from obtaining compensation.
Many lawyers in China say state compensation cases are difficult because of complicated procedures. Last year, the nation's courts dealt with 1,840 such cases, of which less than one third received compensation.
The amendments also eliminated another obstacle for plaintiffs to be compensated.
The current law stipulated victims should first apply for state compensation at the department which caused the loss, and what is more, in some cases, the citizen must first obtain written acknowledgement of violation from the department before applying for compensation.
Zhang said officials refuse to compensate as granting compensation is seen as admission to having violated the law. "If the government denies violating the law, the courts have to dismiss the case," he said.
To address the problem, the amendments remove the requirement of acknowledgement and allow victims to directly apply for compensation, Ma, who sat on the board of experts drafting the law, told Xinhua.
The law amendments also include compensation for psychological injury for the first time. But the amendments do not specify how such injuries and damages are to be assessed, even though several lawmakers suggested clearer definitions during previous readings.
Ma said the existing law which took effect in 1995 significantly promoted human rights at the time.
He said there is still room to improve the law, by boosting the amount of state compensation, for example.
The amount of compensation is currently based on the average daily salary of a government employee - that is, wrong detention compensation is 100 yuan (some 15 U.S. dollars) per day while compensation for death is 20 times average annual income.
Following a string of deaths in detention houses, the amendments aim to enhance protection of detainees' rights and strengthen procedures for police responsible for the safety of detainees to prevent maltreatment by police or other prisoners.
Lawyer Zhang said detention houses should compensate for inmates' deaths if they fail to provide evidence they were not at fault.
"Such stipulations will make it possible for prosecutors to probe abnormal cases of inmate death, even when there is no convincing evidence," said Xu Yongjun, a prosecutor at the People's Procuratorate in Beijing's Haidian District.
