Personal injury compensation for rural victims will be the same as that for their urban counterparts, according to a decision released by the Supreme People's Court (SPC) on April 27 to revise the judicial interpretation on several issues concerning the application of law in trials of personal injury compensation cases.

Disability compensation, death compensation and the living expenses of the dependents will be calculated by the standard of urban residents instead of two differentiated compensation standards in urban and rural areas, the decision said, which took effect on May 1.

The SPC authorized higher people's courts around the country in 2019 to pilot unified compensation standards for personal injuries for both urban and rural victims and started revising the judicial interpretation based on the pilot practices.

In February 2022, the SPC passed the decision to revise six articles in the interpretation. According to the revised interpretation, the compensation standards for disability, death and living expenses of the dependents will be based on the per capita disposable income and consumption expenditure of urban residents, instead of two different indexes for urban and rural areas.

The unified standard can better protect the legitimate rights and interests of urban and rural residents. "Especially for those victims from rural areas, the compensation amount will witness a major increase", said Zheng Xuelin, presiding judge of the first civil tribunal of the SPC. This move also conforms with the urbanization trend in China where the proportion of urban population is increasing, he added.