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"would you like your daughter to be your guardian?"

"i don't hope so. i trust officer wang more than my daughter. if i cannot serve as a guardian, i will choose the neighborhood committee."

on june 12, 2024, pu liang, a prosecutor of the civil prosecution department of the xuhui district procuratorate, began to handle a case involving tu lihai and su hongmei (both pseudonyms) who were applied for a guardian to support prosecution. why did the father tu lihai lose trust in his daughter?

on september 13, a reporter from the paper learned from the xuhui district people's procuratorate of shanghai (hereinafter referred to as the "xuhui district procuratorate") that previously, based on the case clues provided by the community police, the procuratorate legally supported the neighborhood committee as the applicant to apply to the court to serve as the guardian of the elderly. on july 30, 2024, the xuhui district people's court ruled to designate the neighborhood committee as the guardian of the elderly. on september 13, the xuhui district procuratorate took this case as an opportunity to sign the "cooperative working mechanism for helping the elderly and resolving worries (trial)" with the district court, district civil affairs bureau, and district justice bureau.

the father paid off more than 1 million yuan in debt for his adopted daughter

tu lihai was born in the 1940s, graduated from a prestigious university, and both he and his wife su hongmei have stable jobs. after retirement, they lived with their daughter tu in a small old house in the central urban area of ​​shanghai.

a few years ago, su hongmei unfortunately suffered from alzheimer's disease and gradually became unable to take care of herself. in severe cases, she even basically lost consciousness and could only lie in bed and rely on various catheters to maintain her life. tu lihai took good care of his wife. however, at the end of 2023, tu lihai accidentally fell and hit his head, and then his daughter tu took her parents to the hospital together. during the six months of hospitalization, tu took away all the certificates, salary cards, allowance cards, medical insurance cards and cash of the two elderly people, withdrew most of the elderly’s savings, and requested the xuhui district people’s court to declare su hongmei as a person with no civil capacity and tu lihai as a person with limited capacity, and then applied to the court to designate himself as the guardian of the two elderly people.

why were they in a hurry to go through the legal procedures for obtaining guardianship when their elderly parents were not discharged from the hospital? this situation was not in line with common sense and attracted the attention of the presiding judge. in order to hear the case fairly and impartially, after investigation, in accordance with the wishes of the respondent tu lihai, the judge legally added the neighborhood committee as a co-applicant to participate in the lawsuit. at the same time, the xuhui district procuratorate received clues about the case through the "huixin procuratorate" platform that connects the procuratorate with various streets in the jurisdiction, and supported the prosecution after accepting the case.

pu liang, the prosecutor in charge, made full use of his power of investigation and verification. after repeatedly questioning the parties and witnesses and understanding the situation from the community, he learned that his daughter tu had been spending money by overdrawing her credit card since she was in vocational high school. she had been owing money to others for a long time, and tu lihai had helped her repay the principal and interest, which totaled more than 1 million yuan. not only that, tu lihai, who really couldn't pay, also mortgaged his only property to the creditor because of his daughter tu's recent debt of more than 300,000 yuan.

in 2023, the daughter tu learned from other relatives that she was not her biological child, but was picked up and adopted by tu lihai and su hongmei. she even took advantage of the two's hospitalization to apply to designate herself as their guardian.

community police officers have been repeatedly complained about

"i am a community police officer. today i am participating in the trial as a witness from the procuratorate. mr. tu lihai once called me and asked me to save him..." wang huirong, a police officer at the xietu road police station of the xuhui branch of the shanghai public security bureau, has been working in the community where tu lihai lives for 5 years.

wang huirong knew that the main reason for the conflict in the tu family was because their daughter tu owed debts and often asked the elderly for money. she received several calls from the police, and it was tu lihai who came to her, sometimes saying that his children did not let him sleep, and sometimes saying that he did not think about him after cooking. wang huirong took care of it every time, and was often complained by tu lihai's daughter tu. on the day of the trial, the 12345 citizen hotline received a complaint call about her.

"do you trust officer wang?" the judge asked tu lihai. although he was a person with limited capacity for conduct, it was determined that tu lihai had not yet lost his ability to judge matters concerning his own interests. he said slowly and firmly, "i trust officer wang."

"although i felt some pressure after receiving the complaint, my colleagues in the station were very supportive of me. what i did was worthy of the police badge and my original intention of serving the people as a community police officer, so i persisted," said wang huirong.

"i have not always been firm in supporting the prosecution. even before the trial, based on changes in evidence, i thought about whether i should give up supporting the prosecution in court," said prosecutor pu liang.

a few days before the trial, pu liang received a piece of evidence written by tu lihai, with a photo of himself holding the handwritten document. he changed his statement about not allowing tu to be the guardian, and said that he would "apply for joint guardianship between the neighborhood committee and tu." he also gave some bank cards to tu for use in daily life and medical expenses.

"if this is the old man's true intention, then the case is no longer suitable for the prosecution to continue to support the prosecution." pu liang said. because it was an emergency before the trial, pu liang was a little shaken and didn't know what had changed in the old man's mind. pu liang went to the ward where the old man wrote the handwritten letter and asked about the situation of the patient next door.

"at that time, she had been brainwashing the old man from morning to afternoon. the old man did not agree to write at first, but later, seeing that he was making too much noise and affecting the rest of those in the same ward, he wrote this paper. i don't think he did it voluntarily." said the aunt in the same ward.

upon learning of this, the prosecutor questioned tu lihai again. tu lihai said that he did not write it voluntarily at the time, but wrote it at the request of tu. before the trial, he gave the prosecutor another handwritten certificate proving that he still hoped that the neighborhood committee would serve as his guardian.

on july 30, in a "circuit trial" court at a chongming hospital where tu lihai and su hongmei were temporarily staying, the court pronounced the verdict. on the basis of respecting the wishes of the guardian tu lihai, and based on the evidence in the case, it was proved that tu had deliberately concealed the truth about his parents and privately disposed of his parents' property, and did not have the ability to properly manage his parents' property. based on the principle of respecting the wishes of the guardian and what is best for the guardian, the court made a decision to designate a neighborhood committee as tu lihai's guardian.

multiple departments sign collaborative working mechanism to help the elderly solve their problems

after the judgment came into effect, the neighborhood committee became the new guardian and began to manage all the bank cards of the two elderly people.

"when we got the bank cards, we found that except for one bank card that was locked due to incorrect password input, all the balances on the old man's salary card and savings card were basically cleared." the neighborhood committee staff introduced, "in order to buy some daily necessities for the old man, we personally paid some money, but seeing the old man happy, we are also happy."

in order to ensure the quality of life of the elderly in his later years, the xuhui district procuratorate, together with the relevant streets, transferred tu lihai and his still unconscious wife su hongmei to a new nursing home according to his wishes after relevant medical examinations.

"we don't want her (tu) to know where we live." before moving, tu lihai instructed the new guardian.

the case is over, but the relevant work to protect the rights and interests of the elderly has not stopped. according to the data, there are 348,300 registered elderly people over the age of 60 in xuhui district, accounting for 36.7%, and the process of "aging" and "high-ageing" of the population continues to deepen. in 2023, the xuhui district procuratorate handled a similar case of supporting prosecution for the guardianship of patients with mental disorders, and based on the case, it pioneered a medical life reserve fund deposit mechanism in shanghai, and signed the "working mechanism for jointly protecting the legal rights and interests of patients with mental disorders" with relevant units, and stipulated the situation in which organizations such as neighborhood committees were designated as guardians and used the money of the ward on their behalf, ensuring that every penny of the disabled elderly can be used on themselves.

on september 13, the xuhui district procuratorate took the above case as an opportunity to jointly sign the "collaborative working mechanism for assisting the elderly and resolving problems (trial)" with the district court, district civil affairs bureau, and district justice bureau, expanding the recipients of rights protection from patients with mental disorders to a wider group of elderly people.

at the signing ceremony, community police officer wang huirong told everyone: "before coming here, i went to the nursing home to see the two elderly people. after ms. su hongmei arrived in the new environment, she was able to eat on her own and even walked on her own again. in my opinion, this is really a miracle."