On Legal Issues Concerning Voluntary Actions Against Injustice

Voluntary actions against injustice are not only considered noble in human society, but also demonstrations of traditional Chinese virtue. In the process of building a socialist market economy, China attaches equal importance to the development of material civilization and the development of spiritual civilization. Whilst voluntary actions against injustice are an important part of the spiritual civilization, legislations concerning the protection of the rights of volunteers of those actions are obviously inadequate. News stories abound, in which volunteers against injustice were unable to obtain timely and effective compensation, as a result, a moment of glory was followed by a lifetime of suffering and some of them had to suffer both physically and financially after rendering heroic help to others. In recent years, discussions on voluntary actions against injustice have been heated, and public appeal for state legislation of the protection of the volunteers and their selflessly heroic action has been on the rise. Thus, this thesis, analyses voluntary actions against injustice from the legal perspective and proposes the state legislation of the aforementioned in relation to the present legal practices.This thesis is composed of three parts besides introduction and conclusion. The first part introduces attitudes towards voluntary actions against injustice in ancient China, focusing on how our ancestors encouraged and rewarded the volunteers financially, spiritually and politically, and how they cracked down standers-by to better protect volunteers. The second part is on the legal definition of voluntary actions against injustice. By studying the concept, legal characteristics and compensating and rewarding principles of the actions and comparing as well as analyzing legal actions of similar nature, this thesis puts forward a legal concept of voluntary actions against injustice and its constitutes, and also proposes the establishment of a mechanism of compensating and rewarding the volunteers who inflicted suffering on themselves as a result of their actions with an aim to protect the volunteers in a timely, effective and comprehensive manner. In the third part, the thesis reviews current legislations concerning voluntary actions against injustice nationwide, pointing out that regional legislative differences lead to discrepancies in defining the actions, procedures of applying for the status, and compensating measures, institutions, principles, standards, and scope. Therefore, this thesis proposes the establishment of a uniform legislation on voluntary actions against injustice at the state level.