Tuesday, September 8, 2009

A Proclaimer for each Criticism Article

There are disclaimers, and there are proclaimers.

Fang Zhouzi challenged the action by a local Wuhan court to deduct money from his wife's bank account without their knowledge on two accounts: a) neither he nor his wife had received any notice on the impending action; b) he and his wife had a formal agreement on the separation of their financial accounts. Based on these facts, the action by the local court is both inappropriate and illegal.

His challenge was predictably rejected. The court responded that a) they had previously sent out notifications (never mind that they were not received by their recipients) and b) Since the beneficiary Xiao Chuanguo did not have any pre-knowledge of the financial agreement between Fang Zhouzi and his wife, the agreement is declared as non-applicable to the case.

Absurd as the second point sounds, it actually might have some base in the vague language of the Chinese marital law, whose applicability to this case is questionable.

As a measure of defiance and avoid a similar scenario in the future, Fang Zhouzi is making a public proclaimer to "all those who had been and shall be criticized by him" that "Fang Zhouzi and his wife had already agreed to separate their financial matters. Those who are criticized by Fang Zhouzi shall have no right to dispatch local court officials to seize the legal properties of Fang Zhouzi's wife."

This proclaimer will be headlined in every future articles of his that criticizes any person, until the local Wuhan court returns the seized property.

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