guardian.co.uk,
Tania Branigan in Beijing, Wednesday 30 November 2011
 |
| The mother of two-year-old Yueyue shortly after her daughter was finally helped in Foshan. Photograph: China Foto Press / Barcroft Media |
A major
Chinese city wants the country's first "Good Samaritan" rules to
encourage residents to help each other, after the death of a two-year-old girl whose plight was ignored by passers by horrified the nation.
Millions
watched the shocking surveillance footage showing Yueyue being knocked down by
a van, ignored by a stream of passers by and run over by a second vehicle
before a woman finally came to her aid. The little girl from Foshan, Guangdong
province, died days later in hospital.
Officials
in nearby Shenzhen have now published a draft of new rules designed to
encourage people to come to each other's aid, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
It follows
widespread calls for a national law in the wake of Yueyue's death, with experts
warning that many people were too frightened to help each other thanks to a spate
of cases where people sued their rescuers, alleging they had caused the
injuries in the first place. In some cases they may have been genuinely mistaken, but in others the claims seem to have been blatant extortion.
According
to a report from the Guangzhou Daily, the new rules free Good Samaritans from
legal responsibility for the condition of the person they help, except in the
case of gross negligence.
"This
can be seen as the core of the regulation. Its goal is to free citizens who do
good things from worries," said by Zhang Jian, a lawyer at the Shenzhen
Dacheng Law Firm.
Those who
falsely accuse helpers of causing their injuries will face punishments ranging
from having to make a public apology to paying fines or even detention.
Other
measures include offering legal aid to helpers who are sued and official visits
to Good Samaritans to express the city's appreciation.
The rules
also state that the burden of evidence lies on the person accusing a rescuer of
wrongdoing, not on the person who does the rescue.
In several
cases, police and courts have demanded that the helper prove his or her
innocence, while the extortionist has not needed to produce evidence. One judge
ordered a man to pay more than 45,000 yuan (£4,400) to an old lady he had taken
to hospital, arguing it was common sense that he would not have gone to such
trouble unless he had caused her fall.
"I am
very happy that this regulation has come out. People have been hoping for it
for a long time," said Professor Tan Fang of South China Normal
University, who has set up a foundation giving legal support to helpers who are
wrongly accused of harm.
"I
hope Shenzhen can strictly enforce the regulation. I also hope the regulation
will be adopted by more provinces and become a national law."
But Zhang
the lawyer suggested it was unfair to place the burden of proof on the person
helped.
"If
so-called helpers actually made a major mistake, and the victims cannot offer
evidence, then can the helpers just go unpunished by law?" he asked.
• Additional research by Han Cheng
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The incident was captured on surveillance cameras
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