The Qingdao Municipal Procuratorate today released a new type of case – the Qingdao Municipal Procuratorate supported the prosecution of 22 college students to defend their rights and reached a settlement.
On the afternoon of February 4, 2021, Xiao Zhang, a sophomore at a university in Qingdao, was spending winter vacation at his home in Heilongjiang. When he learned that his training fee dispute case had finally been settled and that the remaining 100,000 yuan of training fees would be refunded in full, he excitedly shared the good news with more than 20 other students who defended their rights together in the WeChat rights protection group for the first time. On 21 February, they received an official mediation letter. So far, the case of defending the rights of 22 students in a university in Qingdao over the education and training contract dispute, which lasted for more than 100 days, was supported by the Laoshan District Procuratorate, provided legal aid by Qingdao Guoall Law Firm, and jointly promoted by the Laoshan District Market Supervision Bureau and the Laoshan District Education and Sports Bureau, and the legitimate rights and interests of the college students involved in the case were effectively protected.
Institutional people went to the empty building to refund the fee did not go
This is a group of college students who love to learn. In order to improve their comprehensive English skills, the college students signed up for an expensive but better immersive English training course at a training institution.
In order to improve themselves, they squeezed money out of their living expenses, and one of them, one of them, borrowed 7200 yuan from the bank as a training fee.
At the beginning of 2020, the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, offline immersive training was changed to online teaching, although the effect was discounted, but the students can understand. It was not until June 8, 2020, when the education authorities allowed social training institutions to resume classes, that everyone found that the original training institutions had been emptied, and contacted the training institutions to request a refund of the remaining training fees, but they were delayed again and again.
Communication, complaints; complaints, communication, and so on. While busy making up for the classes left behind during the epidemic, he also had to ask for help to recover the remaining training fees. The common encounter brought everyone together, more than 20 students set up a WeChat group, everyone worked together, hoping to solve the problem as soon as possible and study with peace of mind.
"You go to class, we help defend your rights"
On October 14, 2020, the matter of college students' rights protection attracted the attention of the Laoshan District Procuratorate.
After careful verification and strict review, the Laoshan District Procuratorate believes that due to the needs of epidemic prevention and control, offline classes are cancelled and the training venues are rented, which is excusable, but the remaining training fees should be refunded. Considering that civil litigation has many links, long cycles and unpredictable enforcement of judgments, the Laoshan District Procuratorate has established a pre-mediation approach to handling cases. The Laoshan District Procuratorate also suggested that the university students who defended their rights should designate a classmate as a representative to be responsible for connecting with the procuratorial organs and providing relevant information and materials, so that other students can study with peace of mind and wait for news.
At the same time, the Laoshan District Procuratorate found that the teaching quality of the training institution has always been recognized by students, but it is an unlicensed school. On the morning of October 20, 2020, the Laoshan District Procuratorate invited the District Market Supervision Bureau, the Director in Charge of the District Education and Sports Bureau, and the heads of business departments to hold a symposium on student rights protection, and established a functional linkage working group.
However, more than ten days have passed and the mediation activities have not progressed. Wang Mou, the person in charge of the training institution, did not answer the phone, the text message did not return, and the unremitting efforts of the administrative organs did not exchange for the start of the mediation work. The Laoshan District Procuratorate decided that the procuratorate would initiate mediation.
The procurator handling the case sent a text message to Wang, informing him that if he did not accept mediation, the procuratorial organ would support the prosecution according to law, and finally Wang appeared. In the next 9 days, the procurator handling the case continued to urge Wang to reach a settlement with the students through text messages, and said that he could coordinate Wang's training institutions to improve the school-running procedures.
However, 198 text messages were sent, the case still did not have substantial progress, and the student representative said that in the past 9 days, Wang Mou has not docked with them on the issue of refund and settlement.
5 units linked up to help protect rights
On November 11, 2020, the Laoshan District Procuratorate formally decided to support the prosecution of 22 students defending their rights at a university in Qingdao. Qingdao Guoco has set up two teams of lawyers, prosecution and response to the lawsuit, and completed the upload of online prosecution materials and the investigation and collection of evidence in the shortest possible time.
On January 21, 2021, the first trial was held from 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The 5-and-a-half-hour trial comprehensively restored the fact that the training institution had run the school illegally and the rights and interests of the students had been infringed. On February 4, the second trial, the training institution agreed and settled on the spot, promising to refund the remaining course training fees before March 31, otherwise it would refund all course training fees. The seized property is unsealed after the settlement agreement has been fulfilled.
On February 21, the students received a formal mediation letter, and at this point, the dust of the college student rights protection case promoted by the five units was settled.
(Guanhai News/Qingbao All-Media Reporter Dai Qian Correspondent Qian Li)
Source: Qingdao Morning Post