"It's been more than three years, and the haze that has shrouded our home has finally dissipated!Recently, Ms. Yu came to the Wendeng District Procuratorate of Weihai City, Shandong Province to express her gratitude to the prosecutor who undertook it.
Three years ago, when Ms. Yu first walked into the Wendeng District Procuratorate, she came to "complain": "I didn't know that I rubbed someone else's car at the time, and then I received the other party's **, I immediately rushed back, and I lost the other party's money on the spot, why did it become a traffic hit-and-run?."”
What happened to Ms. Yu?It all started with an accident in March 2020.
"Hit-and-run" fined
The prosecution against the penalty decision was not upheld.
On March 27, 2020, when Ms. Yu was parking in the parking lot of the community, she slightly scratched Li's car and drove away from the scene. After two days, Li immediately called the police after discovering that the car was scratched. A week later, a brigade of the traffic police detachment of the Weihai Municipal Public Security Bureau (hereinafter referred to as the "traffic police brigade") issued a "Public Security Traffic Management Administrative Punishment Decision" to Ms. Yu based on the community surveillance video, determining that she escaped after causing a traffic accident, which did not constitute a crime, and fined her 2,000 yuan.
I didn't even know that there was a scrape, so how could I escape?Dissatisfied with the penalty decision, Ms. Yu filed an administrative lawsuit with the Wendeng District Court, requesting that the administrative penalty decision be revoked and that the traffic police brigade be ordered to make a new decision. After trial, the Wendeng District Court held that the evidence provided by the traffic police brigade was sufficient to prove that Ms. Yu escaped after an accident in the community where she lived. In accordance with the provisions of Articles 77 and 99 of the Road Traffic Safety Law, the Traffic Police Brigade has the right to impose administrative penalties on Ms. Yu, so the judgment rejects Ms. Yu's litigation claim.
Ms. Yu appealed to the Weihai Intermediate People's Court against the first-instance judgment. After trial, the Weihai Intermediate People's Court held that if the traffic management department of the public security organ received a report of the accident that occurred when the vehicle was passing outside the road, it should be handled with reference to the relevant provisions of the Road Traffic Safety Law, and the traffic police brigade had the right to investigate and deal with the accident in this case. Ms. Yu's application to the Shandong Provincial High Court for a retrial was again rejected.
Apply for procuratorial supervision
The courts at the two levels have made clear the functions and powers of the traffic police.
The photo shows Ms. Yu submitting an application for supervision to the procuratorate.
In December 2021, Ms. Yu applied to the procuratorate for supervision.
After the procuratorial organs accept the case, they quickly dispatch the professional backbone of the procuratorates at the city and district levels to form a case-handling team. As one of the undertakers, Zhang Yongguang, deputy chief procurator of the Wendeng District Procuratorate, proposed after reviewing the case that the definition of the word "road" is different in law and daily life, such as the same drunk driving on the road caused an accident and caused death, if the accident occurred on the highway, the perpetrator may be suspected of the crime of causing a traffic accident;If the accident occurred on a road in a closed area, the perpetrator may be suspected of causing death by negligence. If the accident occurred in a closed community, the accident was not a road traffic safety accident, and there was a problem with the traffic police brigade's punishment of the lady.
The procurator who undertook the case went to the community involved in the case to learn about the registration of social vehicles entering and exiting.
In order to find out the actual situation of the accident site, the case handling team went to the community involved in the case to conduct an on-site inspection. After investigation, it was found that the community involved in the case was a closed community, and social vehicles were not allowed to enter and exit freely. Article 119 of the Road Traffic Safety Law stipulates that "roads" refer to highways, urban roads and places where social motor vehicles are allowed to pass although they are within the jurisdiction of the unit, including squares, public parking lots and other places used for public traffic. Obviously, parking lots and parking spaces in closed communities cannot be identified as roads.
Ms. Yu caused an off-road traffic accident, can the traffic police brigade use Article 77 of the Road Traffic Safety Law as the basis for imposing an administrative penalty on Ms. Yu?"On this issue, there are disagreements within the case handling team. Most people believe that the "reference handling" proposed in the Road Traffic Safety Law means that the traffic police brigade enjoys the administrative punishment power granted by the law, and by searching for similar cases, there are also examples in other regions where the traffic police brigade has imposed administrative penalties for such behavior, and the court judgment has supported it.
Administrative organs exercising the power of administrative punishment must be expressly authorized by law, and traffic management departments are no exception. In the face of disagreement, Zhang Yongguang insisted that the road traffic safety law clearly stipulates that the traffic management department has the right to punish road traffic safety violations, and for traffic accidents off the road, it only has the right to "refer to the situation" after receiving the report from the party. Since the law does not specify whether "handling by reference" includes administrative punishment, then, out of caution about public power, it should be denied that the administrative organ has the power to impose administrative punishment in this regard. In order to support his point of view, Zhang Yongguang consulted a large number of books and **, among them, the relevant interpretation books compiled by the Political and Legal Affairs Department of the Legislative Affairs Office explained that for traffic accidents off the road, the traffic management department cannot determine that the perpetrator violates the law, nor can it punish the illegal.
After several discussions at the joint meeting of prosecutors, no consensus was reached. To this end, the case handling team decided to consult the experts of the Traffic Law Research Association of the Shandong Provincial Law Society with the help of the wisdom of the "external brain". After consultation, the five traffic law experts all agreed that off-road traffic accidents should be treated as ordinary civil torts in principle, and the parties should deal with them through litigation or mediation. If the parties report the case, the public security organs mainly assist in the investigation of the accident scene, propose the analysis of the cause of the accident, and organize the parties to mediate, etc., rather than impose administrative penalties on the parties.
In October 2022, the Weihai Municipal Procuratorate requested the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate to lodge a protest against the case on the grounds that the original judgment had erroneously applied the law.
Expand multi-level linkage
Facilitate the substantive resolution of administrative disputes.
Considering that there was an internal controversy before, the case handling team deliberately went to the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate to report the case. After hearing the opinions, the procurator in charge of the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate consulted in detail with the Traffic Management Bureau of the Shandong Provincial Public Security Department and the traffic management department of Linyi City on the handling of similar cases, and personally went to the site of the accident involved in the case to conduct an investigation and listen to the opinions of the parties. In the end, after discussion at the joint meeting of prosecutors of the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate, the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate decided to lodge a protest with the Shandong Provincial High Court.
Procuratorial organs are the last barrier to protect social fairness and justice, and we must use the performance of procuratorial duties to 'revitalize' the fairness and justice written in the law into fairness and justice in the eyes of the people. Protests are not the goal, but the goal is to solve the people's urgency and anxiety with high quality and efficiency, and to maintain the uniform and correct implementation of national laws and social fairness and justice. The prosecutor in charge said.
In order to achieve this goal, the case-handling team will substantively resolve administrative disputes throughout the case: provincial, municipal, and district procuratorates will actively link, reasonably coordinate case-handling forces, and carry out integrated work. After many times of communication with the traffic management department and in-depth interpretation of the legal provisions, the traffic management department finally reached an agreement with the procuratorate and actively participated in the resolution of the administrative dispute in the case.
The procuratorate sends a written procuratorial suggestion to the public security traffic management department.
Subsequently, the Wendeng District Procuratorate issued a procuratorial suggestion to the traffic police brigade involved in the case, suggesting that it strictly regulate the law enforcement procedures and take the initiative to correct the improper punishment in this case. After receiving the procuratorial suggestion, the traffic police brigade actively adopted it and decided to revoke the administrative punishment decision involved in the case.
At the same time, the prosecutor in charge had many heart-to-heart conversations with Ms. Yu to relieve her negative emotions, and at the same time actively urged the parties to move from confrontation to dialogue. "For so long, you have been going back and forth for my business, and I can see that you are really good for me, and I agree to reconcile. Ms. Yu said.
Eventually, under the auspices of the procuratorate, the parties reached a settlement. In September this year, Ms. Yu filed an application to withdraw the lawsuit with the Shandong Provincial High Court. After review, the court ruled to revoke the judgments of the first and second instance and allowed Ms. Yu to withdraw the appeal and prosecution.
*: Prosecutor's Office** Zhenghe Weekly.