Rural accident victim gets bigger compensation

Editor's note: A court in Yongxing county in Hunan province recently ruled that a rural inhabitant who was badly injured in a road accident can get 70,000 yuan ($10,024) as disability compensation, more than the 20,000 yuan that was being given under the earlier standard. Beijing News comments:

This is not the first time a "same life has the same price" principle has been followed. In recent years, a unified compensation standard for personal injuries has been piloted in Anhui, Shaanxi, Henan and some other provinces. Which means the principle of "different prices for the same life" may soon become a thing of the past.

The earlier "different prices for the same life" formula was the outcome of a Supreme People's Court ruling in 2004 on the applicable law in personal injury cases. According to the interpretation, the compensation for casualties was decided based on per capita disposable income of urban residents or per capita net income of rural residents. And the income was decided on the basis of hukou, or household registration, of the victims.

The reason for this differential compensation criterion was due to the differences between urban and rural areas, and it was appropriate for the judiciary to take the different deduced incomes between rural and urban residents into consideration when deciding compensation.

The judicial interpretation was also based on the deep-rooted urban-rural divide in Chinese society. But the roots of this rural-urban divide got eroded thanks to the large-scale suspension of hukou, especially the removal in 2014 of the difference between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou.

Compensation, or "life price" as it is called, is a kind of psychological solace or material compensation given to victim or his or her relatives. Therefore, at the legal or systemic level, the country should not classify it into different grades. The calculation of such compensation on the basis of urban or rural identity is a kind of prejudice.

The country has adopted a unified compensation standard for different people, such as the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Consumers, and the National Compensation Law. So, it is high time that a unified compensation practice is adopted nationwide, and not just implemented on a trial basis.