Wu Guangqiang

    NO bombshell is more shocking than this one.

    Early this month, Shi Jianfeng, a farmer from Yuzhou in Henan Province, was sentenced to life imprisonment for evading expressway tolls running to a staggering 3.68 million yuan (US$558,000) over eight months. He was convicted of fraud. The ruling was jaw-dropping for many because it left too many questions unanswered: How could the non-payment of a freeway toll be that immense? How could an ordinary farmer get away with toll evasion for so long? What criterion was used in imposing the penalty?

    A shaky ruling is doomed to be short-lived. Sure enough, the case took a U-turn within a couple of days after news reports of the sentence caused public outrage. Shi Junfeng, Shi Jianfeng’s younger brother, delivered himself to police, admitting he was the one who was in the wrong.

    The Shis spilled the beans. They claimed the military plates they had used to evade tolls were not bogus as previously found. Instead, they had “bought” them from a unit of the armed police and they were given approval to pass the tollgates after paying bribes. They produced contracts that appeared to bear official seals of the tollgate management and the police unit.

    In view of major changes in facts and evidence coming to light, the Intermediate Court of Pingdingshan decided to quash the sentence and retry the case. The High Court of Henan Province removed a number of court officials from their positions for rash decisions and a conviction lacking evidence.

    Although the flip-flop of the ruling will surely take a toll on judicial solemnity, the damage would be much worse if the cat were not let out of the bag and the chain of interest behind the predacious toll charging and arbitrary fines on “overloading” vehicles were not severed.

    The widespread uproar over the case reflects mounting public grievance over long-standing maladies in China’s expressway operations. Cargo truck drivers have been in a prisoner’s dilemma, that is, however hard they work, they can’t possibly earn enough money because of the high tolls and overload penalties (up to five times the standard toll) unless they further overload their vehicles or evade tolls.

    To complicate matters, it is a prevalent practice in China for truck manufacturers to markedly under-label the load capacity of trucks so that the trucks can be sold more easily because this would presumably help drivers pay lower fees and tolls. This in turn means most trucks would be found to be overloaded even if their loads were within safe limits.

    To make it even worse, overloading is what some police hope for. They live on fines extorted from these sitting ducks.

    It’s a stark contrast between drivers who have to risk their lives hauling overweight trucks just to cover outrageous tolls and fines, while the laughing expressway staff and traffic police grow fat busily counting their fast money.

    China is notorious for one of the highest numbers of toll roads in the world, boasting 100,000 km, accounting for 70 percent of the world’s total. On many roads, tollgates come one after another, a short distance apart, making transport costs soar and forcing some drivers to try to evade fees. Expressway tolls have been the fat savored by some powerful departments with such relish that they have no intention of parting with it even after a toll right expires.

    The complications of this case are far beyond the realms of the judiciary. When one party enjoys excessive rights under a legal umbrella while the other is virtually deprived of basic rights, there is no justice.

    Expressways — supposedly public infrastructure — have long been a golden goose for local governments that take the liberty of setting and raising toll rates, and extending toll rights expiration dates. No transparency. No supervision. It’s not an overstatement to say the chaotic practice in the expressway sector has become a barrier to the nation’s economic growth and has tarnished the reputation of the government.

    All eyes are now watching to see how this case plays out.

    (The author is an English tutor and a freelance writer. He can be reached at jw368@163.com.)