The Boundaries Between Excessive Rights Protection And Blackmail

In recent years, legal concept and consciousness for rights maintenance have been improved and intensified for ordinary people. More people realized to adopt spontaneously self-help approach to conduct rights maintenance instead of choosing to swallow insult and humiliation silently as they did in the past. However, some excessive violations have also been taken from time to time by those customers who believed their rights have been infringed during product quality dispute and claimed for petition and compensation. Among these incidents, including news media exposure or similar methods conducted for threatening purpose to ask for huge compensation, some behaviors may have been confirmed as extortion and racketeer; some have even been convicted and punished for specific cases. Whether such excessive violation shall be considered as legal or illegal, consideration should be given to its legitimacy, degree of behavior, necessity, degree of infringement and other factors. Unfortunately, a comprehensive and systematical standard for conviction still remains unavailable.In China, limitation is adopted in judicial practice for conviction for those excessive violations with rights maintenance purpose. However, for the cases being used by product defect for huge compensation, the phenomenon for same case with different judgment is obvious in a certain degree. For judicial authorities, they often hold different opinions as well. This brings serious impact to China’s judicial impartiality. Due to the universality of improper rights maintenance among the common people, severe legal punishment for extortion crime, hysteretic and blank laws and regulations, sympathy on disadvantaged group, some excessive violations, which should have been sentenced as crime, actually have been given innocent release, neglecting China’s principle of legality. For judgment in foreign countries for such excessive violations, whether it should be considered as crime against property, they had different operations as well. Any measure adopted to avoid such excessive violations is generally closely related with a country’s economic policy background and criminal policy. Thus, a relatively agreed standard is still unavailable. Even for the same country with same session of political organization, the different judgment for such excessive violations in different period is still existed. However, from the legislative and judicial practice currently conducted in most countries, more emphasis has been taken to maintain the property order and the conviction for excessive violations has also been extended. Such phenomenon with excessive violations is contrary to the spirit and concept for a harmonious society. China is expected to combine, in accordance with our social situations, the experiences from foreign countries to conduct conviction for those behaviors with obvious violation to criminal law. Besides, customer and petitioner should be guided to take positive, rational and legal approach for their rights maintenance.