Pushing the boundaries

Deng Yujiao's case shows how online activism is pushing the boundaries in China.

As far as symbols of judicial reform go, Deng Yujiao is as unlikely as they come. A 21 year-old waitress at a seedy massage parlour in a remote corner of China, Ms Deng has in recent weeks become the subject of a high-profile national debate on China’s judicial system. Last month, Ms. Deng was sentenced to death for fatally stabbing a government official at a parlour in Hubei province. But shortly after her sentence was announced, the details of her case found their way to the Internet. It emerged that two local government officials had attempted to force themselves on Ms Deng, who, defending herself with a fruit-knife, had stabbed both of them, one fatally.

When the facts of Ms. Deng’s case emerged, her sentence caused huge public outrage, particularly among China’s 298 million “netizens” who strongly came out in her defence. For China’s increasingly active online community, battling corruption in officialdom has become a favourite pastime. This case, which strikingly framed their struggle –pitting a young girl fighting to protect her modesty against two officials abusing their positions of influence — strongly resonated with them. Ms Deng was dubbed their “Lie Nu” — the woman who dies to save her chastity — and became a symbol for their cause.

Tens of thousands of Internet users signed petitions pleading for clemency, and some bloggers set up a “Netizen Investigation Team” to publicise the facts of the case. Following the wave of public sympathy for Ms Deng, her charge was reduced from voluntary manslaughter to intentional assault. Her case went to trial last week, and Ms Deng was allowed to walk free on the grounds that a “mood disorder” had cleared her of any criminal responsibility.

It is widely believed that the wave of public support for Ms Deng decided the outcome of her case. Pu Zhiqiang, an influential civil rights lawyer, said “popular participation had improved both the investigation and the process” and public support had enabled her to fight for rights she would have otherwise been denied by the local court in Hubei’s Badong County. The outcome has however started a legal debate on the independence of China’s judicial system and to what extent — if at all — public opinion should sway such decisions.

Ms Deng’s is only one of several recent high-profile cases whose outcome has been significantly influenced by public anger, chiefly channelled and mobilised through the Internet. This trend began in 2003, when public outrage following the decision of a local court in Liaoning province to hand a reprieve to an influential gang leader caused the Chinese Supreme Court to step in and overturn the verdict in a rare move.

As the number of China’s Internet users has rapidly grown, these cases are becoming more frequent. In November, a security video of a government official in Shenzhen confronting a man whose 11 year-old daughter he had tried to assault found its way to YouTube, the video-sharing website. When the girl’s father approached the official, he flaunted his Communist Party credentials, boasting he was “the same level with the city’s mayor.” The official was reportedly first allowed to walk free by local authorities, but when the video went online — and received more than one million hits on YouTube — the local government moved quickly to fire him from his position with the government and issued a public statement.

Mr. Pu said Ms Deng’s case, and others like hers, highlight the real challenge facing China’s legal system: improving public confidence in the courts. China’s courts are widely regarded as being feeble when the cases involve ordinary citizens going up against government officials, which is why stories like Ms Deng’s resonate so strongly with the public.

He Weifang, an influential professor of law at Peking University who has campaigned for judicial reform in China, wrote in the aftermath of the Liaoning case that such public trials reflected serious flaws in China’s judicial system. He went as far as saying “traditional governance in China is not based on the separation of power [and] there has never been a judicial apparatus independent of the executive branch.” Mr. He has called for developing judicial independence and improving monitoring of judicial power to ensure judges rule strictly in accordance with law to prevent such “trials by mass media.”

The Internet has made such trials increasingly frequent. It is now harder for local courts — courts usually most susceptible to the influence of local government officials — to pass quick judgments or fix outcomes outside the glare of a highly suspicious public. In Ms Deng’s case, when public opinion strongly aligned with what was perceived to be the “right” verdict, the outcome suited all parties — the angry public, courts suffering from poor credibility and a government wary of public unrest. But on occasions where these interests clash, China’s judicial system will face a trickier test.