Editorials

Law amendments

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-20 06:10

For the proposed amendments to the Criminal Law alone, we wish sufficient consensus at next week's 16th conference of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress.

The amendments, which include criminalizing drunk driving and malicious default of wages, target two clear and current dangers in present-day China, and represent widely anticipated solutions to the two pernicious problems.

Related readings:  Drunk driving to become independent charge  Criminal law may include drunk driving  Workers demand wage by humiliating boss  Government intervention and the minimum wage

As our economy grows and society gets increasingly motorized, dangerous driving, in the forms of drunk driving, racing in densely populated communities and speeding, have turned out to be a new and lethal threats to public security.

Figures from the Supreme People's Court show more than 3,200 drink-related traffic accidents from January to August 2009, resulting in more than 1,300 deaths. Even during the high-profile nationwide crusade against driving under the influence, traffic police authorities registered 213,000 violations and more than 2,100 alcohol-related deaths and injuries.

Given the ineffectiveness of previous attempts to persuade drivers to give up the lethal habit, which puts both drivers and the rest of society in harm's way, creating a new crime and spelling out sufficiently serious legal penalties carries our last ray of hope for a difference in driver behavior.

The same is true of wage defaults in the Chinese labor market. For its pervasiveness and regular association with usually dramatic consequences, intentional wage default is no longer a matter between employers and workers. Nor is it a matter of employer credibility. It is an ultra-sensitive flashpoint annoying both local and central administrators.

(China Daily 08/20/2010 page8)