On the morning of May 17, 2024, the Intermediate People's Court of Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, publicly pronounced the second-instance verdict in the case of appellants Zhang XX and Wang XX v. defendant Zou XX for insulting and abusing the person under care.
The Jiujiang Intermediate People's Court found out through trial that at around 16:00 on November 9, 2021, Zhang, a sixth-grade student of a primary school in Jiujiang City, fell to his death in his residential community. The public security organs arrived at the scene after receiving the police and found a suicide note on Zhang's body, saying that his death was related to the head teacher and Chinese teacher Zou. Before the incident, Zhang had failed to complete the operation in accordance with the prescribed time and quality many times. Classroom surveillance video shows that Zou used words such as "debt king" and "untrustworthy" when criticizing Zhang, and carried out behaviors such as changing seats, slapping his head and neck with a pamphlet, and punishing him to stand to listen to classes. When Zou criticized and educated other students in class, he used basically the same language as he used to Zhang.
The Jiujiang Intermediate People's Court held that Zou's criticism and education of Zhang in his daily teaching did not substantially deviate from the purpose of education, that when he criticized and educated other students in class, he also spoke in a stern tone, and did not deliberately target Zhang, that Zhang's classmates were able to correctly understand and accept Zou's criticism and education, and that there was no causal relationship between Zhang's death and Zou's conduct in the sense of criminal law. Zou's conduct does not constitute the crime of insult or abuse of the person under care. The first-instance judgment found that the facts were clear, the evidence was credible and sufficient, the law was correctly applied, and the trial procedures were lawful, so the appeal was rejected and the first-instance judgment of acquittal was upheld.
When Zou criticized education, he failed to pay attention to the psychological and emotional changes of Zhang, who was not yet physically and mentally mature, and did not strengthen the assistance to students and communicate with parents in a timely manner afterwards, and some of Zou's speech and behavior did not meet the requirements of the people's teachers' professional ethics.
Previously reported
On November 9, 2021, Zhang, an 11-year-old boy in Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, committed suicide by jumping from a high-rise building in his community, and later his parents found a suicide note on Zhang's body, which identified the head teacher Zou as using violence against him.
Zhang's suicide note
In December 2021, Zhang's parents, Zhang Moumou and his wife, filed a criminal private prosecution with the Lianxi District Court of Jiujiang City, requesting that Zou be found guilty of insult and investigated for criminal responsibility, and in the middle of that month, the court filed the case.
On July 10, 2022, the local education bureau notified its handling opinions on Zou. The report pointed out that Zou had "illegal acceptance of red envelopes and gifts from service objects, banquets from service objects and accommodation arrangements in Lushan", "repeated ridicule and discrimination against many students and other violations of teacher ethics and teacher style", and gave Zou a serious warning within the party, reduced the level of two posts and transferred from the teaching post.
On August 9, 2023, the case was pronounced in the first instance of the Lianxi District People's Court of Jiujiang City: the teacher involved Zou did not constitute the crime of insult and abuse of the person under care, and the court acquitted the defendant Zou. The boy's father, Zhang, appealed in court. The boy's father said in an interview with reporters: "The defendant Zou appeared in court and refused to admit that she was sarcastic and discriminatory against students as reported by the Education Bureau, and called her 'humorous teaching', which I felt very angry." ”
Source: CCTV News, Rule of Law Daily, Guangzhou Daily, etc
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