Tibetan herdsmen find justice at doorstep
Print Edition
SHAKA, a Tibetan herdsman, fought with a fellow villager for years over a piece of land, but solving the dispute in a court seemed out of the question.
“I never went to school, I don’t speak Mandarin and I know nothing about the law,” said the 48-year-old, who lives in Gongcha County in northwest China’s Qinghai Province.
More than 63.4 percent of the county are Tibetans. During the summer, many of them like Shaka, are involved in animal husbandry in the county’s remote mountains. For them, going to court takes too much time and is too expensive.
This summer, however, Shaka had his day in court — thanks to the bilingual circuit court service. These mobile courts involve judges traveling to remote areas to solve disputes and help to bring justice to the people.
Qinghai will develop the practice further, said Man Zhifang, vice president of the Higher People’s Court in Qinghai. “We will train more bilingual judges ... and create opportunities for the circuit court service.”
Shaka’s case was heard on August 1 near his yurt on land where he herds his cattle.
The judge, Lhamo Dorje, from Gongcha County People’s Court, is a native Tibetan, born and raised in Gangcha. He arrived in a van carrying the national emblem, court banner, desks and chairs needed for the trial. Four people arrived as jurors.
The defendant Gongbaocha was in hospital, so his wife represented him. The trial lasted four hours, and the judge adjourned the trial for the verdict to be given in a few days. “It was a good day, no rain or snow, and we had enough time to return to the county,” said Song Jizhu, presiding judge of civilian cases in the county court.
A growing number of bilingual judges like Dorje are making sure people’s rights are not lost in translation.
Dorje recalled a criminal case where an interpreter translated the verdict “suspended sentence for two years” as “go home and we’ll see if you die in two years.”
Many interpreters lacked legal knowledge, he said, so now the focus was on training bilingual magistrates. Over the past five years, the bilingual circuit court has handled 229 cases and its judges have traveled more than 100,000 kilometers.
The court also offers villagers the opportunity to learn more about the law.
The traveling court used to be called horseback court, said Song, but now judges travel by vans. Trips, however, can still be arduous and take days.
The vans are loaded with tents, food, cooking utensils and heavy clothes as the team may have to spend many nights in the wilderness.
Journeys are not without danger. A few years ago, a jeep carrying three female judges was trapped by a piece of collapsed ice on the river. They had no other choice but to wade into the freezing water and push the jeep out of the river.
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