Jailed for Negligence

April 3, 2010

Robert Hart, the main character in My Splendid Concubine, wrote, In China, the innocent often suffer along with the criminals where in England the accused often goes free or the sentence is too light.

A piece in The Washington Post, Prison for bosses of China disco after deadly fire, pointed out how two bosses of a nightclub in southern China were sent to prison for more than 15 years for a fire in their club that killed 44 people and injured 64. In addition, the club’s general manager was sent to jail for three years while fourteen other club managers received jail terms up to six years.

A similar fire in America in 1942, the Cocoanut Grove Fire, killed almost five hundred and injured hundreds more.  The kitchen helper who started the fire due to negligence was not punished but the nightclub’s owner was sent to jail for twelve years but let out in four.

When Faith Dremmer was killed in southern Illinois by a motorist who swerved across the road hitting her and two others, all he received was a ticket for improper lane use. What would the verdict have been in China?

Learn more about China’s justice system at http://wp.me/pN4pY-hH

 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Flexible China – Inflexible America

April 1, 2010

Imagine a piece in the Op-Ed section of the NY Times, a media bastion for liberal democracy, saying China is more open to change than the United States.

“China may be more open to fundamental political reform than the United States. Since the rule of law in America is based upon the notion that the state itself is constrained by a body of pre-existing law that is sovereign, any thought of rewriting the Constitution is anathema.” Source: The Fault Lines of Democracy

Changes in the United States often end up mired in partisanship between the two major political parties. Consider that the Equal Rights Amendment (proposed in 1921) in America still is not part of the Constitution. The movement to gain freedom for women started in 1841 while changes in China to improve women’s lives started in 1949, when Mao said, “Women hold up half the sky.”

Consider that the juvenile justice system in China is considering changes after a delegation from China came to America to examine what the United States juvenile justice system was like.

Discover more about China Law and Justice System

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

An Update about China’s Criminal Justice System

April 1, 2010

Amnesty International (started in 1961) says,” The time is long overdue for China to fall into line with international law and standards on the death penalty and be open and transparent regarding its use of capital punishment.”

My question is, who rules China – the government of China or Amnesty International?  Without taking into consideration the cultural differences that cause the Chinese to appear secretive, Amnesty International’s “demand” is uncalled for. Change takes time and change in China (a culture born about 2205 B.C.) does appear to be taking place. To understand the Chinese better, read what Peter Hessler has to say.

A few years ago, we would not have seen anything like this from China’s state-run English-language newspaper, China Daily, that inmates in China’s 2,700 pretrial detention centers suffer bullying and torture from fellow prisoners and police officers, and some criminal justice experts want a neutral body to take over the centers from the police to curb the abuses.

Meanwhile, the United States was the only nation in the Americas to carry out executions in 2009 with fifty-two executions. Saudi Arabia executed 69 people.  Iran executed at least 112 people in the 8 weeks after the last presidential election (we heard about that since Iran is on the list of evil countries).

See China Law and Justice System 

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Powerful Chinese Women

March 22, 2010

Empress Wu Zetian founded her own dynasty in 690 and ruled to 705 AD. During the Tang Dynasty, women had more freedom and did not bind their feet. They also contributed in the areas of culture and politics.

The Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi, Orchid, ruled China for half a century (1861 – 1908) but was never officially the emperor. She ruled through her son and then a nephew.

Today, Chinese women have assumed important positions in the government. Female deputies total about 22% of the National People’s Congress, and women make up close to 18% of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. There are more than 230 women holding ministerial or provincial positions. source

Wu Yi, known as the Iron Lady

Among these powerful women are examples such as Wu Yi, who served as vice mayor of Beijing; deputy minister in the foreign trade ministry and as the health minister, where she reshaped the nation’s image in the fight against SARS. Then there is Song Xiuyan, the governor of Qinghai Province. Song is the only female provincial governor in China. Next is Liu Liying, who, as a judge, developed a legendary reputation fighting corruption.

Discover The One-Child Tragedy

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, Chinese women, government, health care, legal system, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Law and Justice System

March 20, 2010

Over the years, I’ve talked to citizens in China and the opinion is that most of the police take their jobs seriously and are honest.  It is also believed that the judges in the court system follow the laws of China and are also honest.  Yes, there is corruption in China even at the highest level, but there is also corruption in America and any other country.

Chart for China's Court System

 

Article 5 of China’s Organic Law states the functions and powers of the people’s procuratorates at all levels as the following:

  1. to exercise procuratorial authority over cases of treason, cases involving acts to dismember the state and other major criminal cases severely impeding the unified enforcement of state policies, laws, decrees and administrative orders
  2. to conduct investigation of criminal cases handled directly by themselves;
  3. to review cases investigated by public security organs and determine whether to approve arrest, and to prosecute or to exempt from prosecution;
  4. to exercise supervision over the investigative activities of public security organs to determine whether their activities conform to the law;
  5. to initiate public prosecutions of criminal cases and support such prosecutions;
  6. to exercise supervision over the judicial activities of people’s courts to ensure they conform to the law;
  7. to exercise supervision over the execution of judgments and orders in criminal cases and over the activities of prisons, detention houses and organs in charge of transformation through labor to ensure such executions and activities conform to the law. source

A Western legal system would not work in China. China’s legal system represents China—not America or another country.

This series of posts about the legal system in China started with Officer in Action

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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