Guideline on drunken driving a welcome move

Judicial explanation makes law clearer

Wang Lin, director of litigation law faculty, Law School of Hainan University

The pilot guideline should not be interpreted as a watering down of the Criminal Law, which imposed harsher punishments on drunken drivers in 2011, because the Criminal Law does not say all drunken drivers should get penalties set out for dangerous driving. In fact, an article in general provisions of the Criminal Law says: "If an act is obviously minor, causing no serious harm, and is therefore not deemed a crime," theoretically it could be applied to all individual cases, including dangerous driving.

To be precise, even though the eighth amendment to the Criminal Law identifies drunken driving as a crime, it does not stipulate that all drunken driving cases be determined as crimes. The pilot guideline as such, has no conflict with the existing law.

The public should therefore pay attention to the details in the guideline. For example, the guideline says: "If the circumstances are obviously minor, causing no serious harm, conviction and punishment should be avoided; if the circumstances are minor, criminal punishment could be avoided." While the guideline does not clarify what is the exact difference between "obviously minor" and "minor" circumstances, the function of judicial explanations is to make the law more practical, for instance, by giving judges a precise reference point to base their judgments on, instead of empowering them to use a wide range of templates to determine the circumstances.