On Taiwan, China Against The Right To Life Of The Damages

With modern scientific technology undergoing leaps and bounds at the onset of theIndustrial Revolution, particularly so is how rapidly progressing modern technology that emerged following the invention of nuclear energy, chemistry and transportation after World War Ⅱ has revolutionized our lives with an abundance of modern high- tech gadgets which though greatly excel our standard of living do however also further complex our lives, with many setbacks that soon followed. Though serving to enrich our modern lifestyle, such modern high-tech gadgets do bring forth unprecedented hazards; take the example of Taiwan, following its rapid economic and industrial development over the recent years, and technological advancement, the number of accidental incidents has inadvertently skyrocketed to become one among the top ten cause of fatalities in Taiwan. Among them, the number of accidental fatalities arisen from moving incidents of motorized vehicles and motorcycles is edging up yearly, which according to Taiwan Department of Health statistics that 2003 reported a total of 8,151 individuals died of accidental incidents, or an average of 22 individuals died of accidental incidents per day on average, and that a majority of which had been the result of moving incidents, a staggering accidental incident fatality rate unrivaled by the industrialized countries.As puzzling is how Taiwan's technological sophistication and motorized vehicleprevalence ratio that leg behind the industrialized countries, yet its accidental fatality rate has inadvertently taken the lead? In a move to discern the probable causes, a rational explanation might have been the pedestrian's lack of law-abiding mentality, yet are there other reasons that contribute to the phenomenon? While it may be too soon for us to jump to any conclusion, it is equally inclusive for us to jump to the conclusion whether the Taiwan court system'sactual compensation rulings that are consistently underrated than that in the industrialized countries in terms of infringement of lives in Taiwan bear any correlation as an indirect catalyst driving up the foresaid accidental fatality rate. Nonetheless, the underrated amount of compensation as ruled by Taiwan's court system for infringement of lives that often cast a felling with people that lives are not worth much, and perhaps an indirect catalyst leading to how some people ignore the value of lives by disobeying laws and regulations. Furthermore, a Supreme Court 1965 ruling, under ref. Taiwan Appeals No. 951, reckons that as the victim's life has been disintegrated due to injuries sustained, the victim is no longer able to claim whose rights, hence rendering the damage compensation claim to be unsustainable. As a result, a victim's equitable gain, assuming that he survives an accident, may not be sought other than the victim per se. As can be extrapolated from the above example, the surviving family of a victim could only file damage claim against the damage inflictor on the grounds of loss of dependence gain, as provided under Taiwan' s Civil Law article 192, section 2 and exactly because of this, in practical court rulings the sum of compensation that a court awards to an infringement of life often falls below that awarded to cases of severe injuries Therefore, in some severe moving incident cases, it is not uncommon to find that the damage inflictor would blatantly run over and killed the victim already injured only to evade to a lower sum of compensation. So why exactly is it that court rulings tend to award a lower amount of compensation to infringement of life than bodily injuries ? A rational justification lies in how Taiwan's Civil Law, Article 193 stipulates the award of loss of unearned income by a victim with a formula that multiplies a victims expectant income with the victim's remaining productive life cycle, when a victim is deprived of whose ability to work, or with a reduced ability to work, particularly in the loss of mobility or severe loss of earning capability, in which the sumof compensation calculate by this means tends to exceed the sum sought by a victim's surviving family. With that, in practical implementation, the tendency does suggest that the court system emphasize more on the protection of bodily rights more than the infringement of life. Despite how we all agree that lives are sacred and priceless, yet how do he general public view the value of life? Irrefutably, in certain significance as the sum of compensation awarded to infringement of life has been taken for granted it would suffice for us to conclude that as far as Taiwan's general public are concerned, there is a deficiency in how court judges view the value of lives, which can be more than substantiated through the foresaid illustration of underrated compensation awards. To gauge from the damage compensation awarded to infringement of life in Taiwan, the foresaid Supreme Court ruling has blatantly denied the deceased's damage compensation claim and compensation for the deceased's expectant gain in whose earnings, or unrealized profit, resulting in an underrated sum of compensation award.The thesis reckons that as human rights protection is increasingly becominga global trend, it does call for our atten-tion and rightful protection of human rights,being that the right to live remains a rudimentary fabric of human rights. When confronted with situations where the right to live has been grossly infringed, there is a compelling necessity that the sum of compensation awarded by a court ruling would need to be brought up substantially in order to protect the lives of a victim' s surviving family, and indirectly steer the society to emphasize value of lives, as well as curtail the fatality rate arisen accidental incidents. With the above reasoning, and focusing on the foresaid 1965 Supreme Courtl ruling, under ref. Taiwan Appeals No. 951, the thesis attempts to discuss issues pertaining to the division of the right to file for damage compensation claim,inheritance among the heirs and heiresses, and proposes the author's humble views by recapping interpretations derived from theoretic assertions and field court rulings.