This year marks the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of the National Compensation Law. Since the promulgation and implementation of the State Compensation Law, it has played an important role in safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations, and promoting the administration of state organs in accordance with the law, justice and other aspects. Recently, the Supreme People's Court has selected 4 cases from the judicial compensation cases heard by the people's courts over the past 30 years and released them. This is not only a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of the National Compensation Law, but also an opportunity for people to review the concept of the rule of law, the value of the system and the judicial significance of some landmark cases involved in national compensation, and inspire people to think deeply.
These four cases, each of which has its typical significance, involve compensation for personal freedom damage, compensation for life and health damage, and compensation for property damage. The parties involved in the case include Wu Chunhong, Zhang's uncle and nephew, and the family members of Hoge Jiletu. In addition, there is a case involving property rights protection. A real estate company in Shenyang applied for and received compensation.
Wu Chunhong was sentenced to life imprisonment for suspected intentional homicide, and the retrial was able to change the verdict of innocence. The Supreme Law has played a key role in both the revision of the sentence and the granting of state compensation, and has increased the amount of compensation for mental damage, reflecting a "high" word. Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping were wrongly convicted and detained for a long time. After the retrial, the Zhejiang Higher People's Court filed the case on the day of receiving the application for national compensation, and made a decision on national compensation 15 days later, highlighting the attitude of judicial authorities to attach great importance to and handle the case quickly, reflecting the word "fast". After the Hugejile design was vindicated, the Higher People's Court of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region determined and compensated for the death compensation, funeral expenses, compensation for restricted personal freedom before death, and emotional damage relief money, which reflects the "excellent" character of preferential compensation. A real estate company in Shenyang applied for national compensation, involving the return of 20 million yuan of property not recognized by the court as involved in the case and the compensation of 830000 yuan of corresponding interest losses. This case was also the compensation decision made by the Supreme Court Compensation Commission after its review, which reflects the word "all" to protect the applicant from any economic losses.
These four compensation cases are all criminal compensation cases. Criminal compensation plays an economic remedy role for the improper exercise of state power or judicial errors, which has been widely adopted by the international community. The international community also lists the realization of this right as a criterion of criminal justice.
The national compensation law of our country reflects the basic spirit of the Constitution: "Those who suffer losses due to the violation of civil rights by state organs and state functionaries have the right to obtain compensation in accordance with the law." Before the formulation of the national compensation law, China gave economic compensation to those who were wrongly arrested or imprisoned in unjust or wrong cases, mainly based on policies, People used to call it "implementing policies". The relevant provisions of the 1982 Constitution and the 1986 General Principles of the Civil Law contain the content of national compensation, which has sounded the clarion call for the establishment of the national compensation system.
On May 12, 1994, the National Compensation Law was passed, marking the formal establishment of China's criminal compensation system. After further modification and improvement, this law has played an important role in protecting the legitimate rights and interests of victims to obtain state compensation in many years of application. In order to implement the National Compensation Law, the Supreme Law has issued a judicial interpretation of the National Compensation Law, which makes the National Compensation Law better change from a law on paper to a law in action, and further realizes the rule of law in the field of national compensation.
For state organs and their personnel, the state compensation system has a wake-up role, reminding them to exercise their power carefully and prevent the abuse of state power from happening again. The operation of state power should try to avoid mistakes, but it is still inevitable that mistakes will occur if we are cautious and afraid. Once mistakes occur, the victims may suffer economic losses, mental damage, and personal freedom may be wrongly deprived, and some people may even lose their lives due to wrong judgments. These people have the right to receive compensation from the State. State compensation is not only a remedy for victims who have suffered economic damage, but also a spiritual comfort for victims who have been wronged.
Reviewing these cases of state compensation, some of the parties died before receiving state compensation. State compensation is only a kind of compensation for the economic loss and spiritual damage of their living relatives, and the lost lives cannot be reborn through compensation. The fundamental solution is to learn lessons from unjust and wrong cases, improve the mechanism of judicial procedures in constraining state power, respecting and protecting human rights, prevent unjust and wrong cases, and reduce the actual application of the state compensation law to wrongly exercise the state penalty power and the right of prosecution. This is also the goal that our public security and judicial organs have tried to achieve through various efforts over the years. At present, the Standing Committee of the current National People's Congress has included the further revision of the State Compensation Law in the five-year legislative plan. It is believed that the amendment and improvement of the law will provide a more comprehensive and reliable system guarantee for human rights protection and public power restriction.
(The author is a professor of Tsinghua University Law School)
