Is the claim of "mutual beatings" with intruders justified? Lawyer: Inappropriate and misleading

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CCTV News (Reporter Zhu Chunyan Peng Jun): Recently, the incident of "strange men kicking and breaking the door of a woman's house in the early morning" has aroused the attention of netizens. The local police "Ping An Jiangyan" WeChat public account issued a notice saying that the intruders fled the scene after the two sides beat each other indoors.

According to media reports, the incident occurred in the early morning of October 5, when the man Zhang broke into the homes of Wu and Chen, who lived in the same community, causing a conflict. Immediately, the police arrived at the scene to deal with it and left. Wu and Chen were stopped and beaten by Zhang and 5 others on the way to the hospital. At present, Zhang Mou has been taken compulsory measures of criminal detention in accordance with law.

Some netizens asked whether "mutual beating" is applicable here? The CCTV reporter contacted Zhang Xinnian, a lawyer at Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm, to interpret and analyze the incident.

Focus 1: How to understand "mutual beating"?

Lawyer Zhang Xinnian: It is inappropriate to use "mutual beating" here, which is easy to cause misunderstanding, because under normal circumstances, both parties to the mutual beating will face legal responsibility. Mutual beating is not a strict legal concept, usually refers to the two sides fighting, each other is at fault, and then according to whether the physical injury of one or both parties reaches the standard of minor injury or above, and then pursue the public security illegal responsibility or criminal liability of the perpetrator of the mutual beating for intentional injury in accordance with the law.

Focus 2: How to view the incident of "strange men kicking and breaking the door of women's homes in the early morning"?

Lawyer Zhang Xinnian: The man's behavior was extremely bad, kicking through the doors of others in the middle of the night, deliberately destroying other people's property, and then illegally invading the house, breaking the living tranquility of others, and after the police had intervened to deal with it, he once again inflicted harm on others, which was simply a serious challenge to the bottom line of the law and should be severely punished according to law. The man may face a number of charges, including picking quarrels or intentionally destroying property, trespassing into a home, and intentional injury. Of course, this needs to be combined with the specific circumstances of the crime scene, and the final determination of the judicial organ shall prevail.

Focus 3: How to understand legitimate defense? What are the boundaries of legitimate defence?

Lawyer Zhang Xinnian: The law cannot yield to lawlessness, and legitimate defense is a right granted to citizens by law. In this incident, the victim's counterattack was clearly a legitimate defence. China's Criminal Law stipulates that an act taken to stop an unlawful infringement in order to protect the State, the public interest, the person, property and other rights of oneself or others from ongoing unlawful infringement, and causing harm to the wrongdoer, is legitimate self-defense and does not bear criminal responsibility.

The boundaries of legitimate defence are not to exceed reasonable limits. The determination of excessive defense shall meet both the conditions of "clearly exceeding the necessary limit" and "causing significant harm".

Relevant laws and regulations:

Article 20 of the Criminal Law: Acts taken to stop unlawful infringements in order to protect the State, the public interest, or the person, property and other rights of oneself or others from ongoing unlawful infringement, and causing harm to the wrongdoer, are legitimate self-defense and shall not bear criminal responsibility.

Where legitimate defense clearly exceeds the necessary limit and causes major harm, criminal responsibility shall be borne, but the punishment shall be mitigated or waived.

Where a person commits a defensive act in the course of committing murder, homicide, robbery, rape, kidnapping, or other violent crimes that seriously endanger personal safety, causing the death or injury of an unlawful infringer, it is not excessive defense and does not bear criminal responsibility.