Last week, a 70-year-old Chinese woman from Heilongjiang province died on the Great Wall after she was knocked down by a tourist from Canada, who reportedly was running quickly down some steps.

Does this constitute a crime? The answer varies. The district police governing the place where the incident happened concluded it was a pure "accident" after their investigation. Therefore, the police did not launch a criminal investigation but guided the woman's family and the Canadian woman into civil mediation.

However, many Chinese netizens suspect the police providing favorable treatment to the tourist because of her nationality. Frankly, it is a common mindset among some Chinese because the government offered favorable treatment to foreign enterprises and citizens during the early years of opening-up.

And several legal experts have argued that running down the steps constitutes negligent homicide according to Chinese criminal law, as it is an action that puts others at risk.

The crime of negligent homicide in China consists of four aspects, namely an action results in death, the act itself, the causal relationship between the action and the death, the action was committed because of gross negligence. The last element usually is the most decisive one. It assumes a person has a duty not to engage in an action that may foreseeable be of danger to others.

It is hard to give a firm conclusion based on the reported facts and details. But the reasonable assumption is that a running person may bump into others and hurt them, but not kill them.

There are two common ways to settle a civil dispute, amicable mediation or court judgment. In either case, the Canadian woman should provide monetary compensation to the injured party either in the spirit of equitable liability principle or fault liability principle according to Chinese law. The total sum is usually hundreds of thousands of yuan subject to the merits of each case. If two parties cannot reach a consensus on compensation, the injured party may file a case with a court.

Since the party whose action resulted in the death of another is a Canadian citizen, can she leave China at will? The answer is no. According to the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Control of the Entry and Exit of Foreigners, a foreigner is forbidden to leave China if he or she is involved in an unresolved civil case. The party bringing the civil case may apply for an order from the court with jurisdiction to prevent the other party leaving the country provided doing so would substantially affect the claimant's interests and the enforcement of court decisions.

Finally, some wonder whether the judgment of a Chinese court can be recognized and enforced by a Canadian court since China and Canada have not signed a bilateral treaty on judicial assistance on civil and commercial cases. According to Canadian law, only if the judgment is obtained by fraud or by unjust procedure, or based on penal, revenue or other public law of the foreign jurisdiction, will a foreign judgment not be recognized.

Assuming the claimants in the current case win a favorable judgment from a Chinese court, the following three conditions can be easily met: First, the court governing the Great Wall where the accident happened enjoys jurisdiction according to basic rules of conflict in private international law. Second, a decision is final after two sessions in China: first trial and appeal. And the procedure could be quite fast if the case is not complex. Third, the judgment of a tort case usually involves monetary compensation. Therefore, the three criteria are not legal obstacles for recognition and enforcement. Noticeably, the overwhelming trend in Canada is towards greater ease of enforcement of foreign judgments.

China is building a society governed by rule of law. Perhaps foreigners received favorable treatment in previous years, but now the trend is towards fair treatment with little regard for nationality. So if anything unfortunate happens, a foreigner needs to resort to the law.

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