Later, Guman filed a lawsuit with the court, hoping that the Altay municipal government would return the meteorite. The court ruled in the first and second instance that the prosecution was dismissed, and Zhu Man filed a complaint. The Higher People's Court of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region sent the case back to the Intermediate People's Court of Altay City for retrial. 20 18 1.3, the retrial judgment was issued, and the court rejected Zhu Man's claim to return the meteorite.
"Who is the legal ownership of meteorites? This judgment is still not mentioned. " Sun Yi, Juman's lawyer, said Juman was ready to appeal.
The court found that1July, 1986, Zuman, a Kazakh herder, found a stone on his lawn while grazing in Keletikeyi Village, Hongdun Town, Altay City, and informed his family, neighbors and village committee. The village Committee asked Zuman and his family to look after the stone. On September 20 1 1 year, Zhu Man received the nursing fee of 20,000 yuan from the relevant responsible department. Later, this stone was detected as a meteorite. At that time, the Altay municipal government moved it to the urban area to protect the meteorite.
During the trial, the focus of the case was whether the plaintiff's lawsuit was unreasonable and whether the defendant should return the meteorite to the plaintiff.
"From the moment it fell, before it was controlled by anyone, there was a question of whether it belonged to the discoverer or the country." Zhao Xudong, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law and president of china law society Commercial Law Research Association, said. In fact, the ownership of meteorites has always been a legal dispute. There is no clear list of "meteorites" in the state-owned natural resources stipulated in China's Property Law.
Meng Qiang, an associate professor at the School of Law of Beijing Institute of Technology and deputy secretary-general of China Civil Law Research Association, told the Legal Daily reporter that the current laws and regulations in China have almost no clear provisions on the attribution of meteorites, and only the Regulations on the Protection and Management of Geological Relics promulgated by the then Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources 1995 made some direct provisions on the issue of meteorites. Article 4 stipulates that protected geological relics are the precious wealth of the country, and no unit or individual may destroy, excavate, trade or transfer them in other forms. At the same time, article 7 stipulates that meteorites with great scientific research and ornamental value belong to geological relics that should be protected. "It can be seen that the regulations of this department contain the meaning of identifying meteorites as state-owned. In the current dispute about the ownership of meteorites, most local governments regard meteorites as state-owned. "
Meng Qiang said that similar to the dispute over the ownership of meteorites, there are ebony and natural gold nuggets. China's property law stipulates that mineral resources, water, sea areas, forests, mountains, grasslands, wasteland, beaches and other natural resources. They are all owned by the state, and the law stipulates that all cultural relics owned by the state are owned by the state. It also stipulates the ownership of lost things, drifting things, buried things and hidden things found, but due to the particularity of meteorites, it has not been clearly defined.