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Published: April 14, 2006
GUOJIATUO, China — He Qingzhi's teenage daughter, Yuan, and her two friends lived on the same street near the Yangtze River, attended the same middle school and were crushed to death in the same traffic accident late last year. After that, the symmetry ended: under Chinese law, Yuan's life was worth less than the others'.
He Yuan, 15, and two friends died in a truck accident. Her family received less compensation than the others.
Yuan's father, He Qingzhi, was registered as a migrant worker and was entitled to only about one-third of what the other girls' families got.
Mr. He, 38, who has lived in this town in central China for 15 years, was told that his neighbors were entitled to roughly three times more compensation from the accident because they were registered urban residents while he was only a migrant worker.
\"I was shocked,\" said Mr. He, as he sorted through legal papers in his apartment recently while his wife sobbed in the next room. \"The girls are about the same age. They all went to the same school. Why is our life so cheap?\"
Outraged, Mr. He and his lawyer are considering a lawsuit, saying that the decision was discriminatory and that the family was entitled to full compensation under the Chinese Constitution. The problem with that argument is the Chinese Constitution. More Chinese citizens like Mr. He are claiming legal rights and often citing the Constitution, but it is actually a flimsy tool for protecting individual rights.
The problem is not that the document lacks lofty ideals or is considered unimportant. But for citizens in China, the Constitution is largely inaccessible. Even as it describes a broad range of rights, the Chinese legal system essentially does not allow people like Mr. He to use the Constitution as a mechanism to challenge laws or policies that they believe infringe on those rights.
Even so, some legal reformers in China believe that advancing the notion of constitutional law is critical in establishing the rule of law. So, increasingly, reformers are pushing ideas like creating a new and assertive constitutional court. Liberal reformers believe that expanding the reach of the Constitution could ultimately provide a greater check on the Communist Party.
\"There is a movement to make the Constitution mean something,\" said Stanley Lubman, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert on Chinese law. But for now, Mr. Lubman added, \"the Chinese Constitution is an aspirational document.\"
The debate is hardly an abstract one for the Chinese government. Top leaders have made reducing the urban-rural income gap a domestic priority and have taken some steps to help migrant workers. They have also stressed the need for a fair and modern legal system to regulate Chinese society and safeguard individual rights.
The Constitution has been rewritten or amended several times over the past half century, most recently in 2004, to include protections for private property rights. Such constitutional amendments are considered guidelines when the government drafts laws or regulations. But the Constitution does not stand above the Communist Party and ultimately, expanding the power of the Constitution or increasing the power of the courts could mean introducing changes in the political system, a move the Communist Party has resisted.
Here in the mountains of the vast Chongqing Municipality, Mr. He's family had been a migrant success story before his daughter's death.
Mr. He grew up in a farming village in the hills surrounding the Yangtze but left in 1991 to take a job in the wholesale meat business. He bought and slaughtered pigs in different villages for a butcher who sold the meat at a shop in Guojiatuo, which has about 29,000 people. Mr. He and his wife, Zhan Denglan, moved into the butcher shop, and Yuan was born that year at a nearby hospital.
By 2000, Mr. He had opened his own meat stand at a nearby market, and his daughter had enrolled in a local school. He still has the temporary residency cards that he updated annually in order to live as a migrant worker. He said he had paid local taxes since opening his stand, and his family also has a small red booklet in recognition of their compliance with the one-child policy.
Last year, on the morning of Dec. 15, Yuan, 14, went by the meat stand early in the morning to get money for school materials. Ten minutes after she left, someone told Mr. He that Yuan had been in an accident. At the scene, he discovered that a truck overloaded with bricks had smashed into the small motorized pedicab carrying Yuan and her two friends to school. The truck had toppled and crushed the three girls beneath several tons of bricks.
\"I was so grief-stricken that I could hardly stand,\" Mr. He said. |
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