Government and Policy

'Get rid of interference in local courts'

By Xie Yu (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-24 08:37

Grassroots people deserve chance at fair litigation against govt: Chief justice

BEIJING - China's chief justice has told judges across the country not to allow local authorities to meddle and interfere with any public litigation against them.

Public litigation, often called "common people suing the government" in China, has sparked rising complaints and petitions in recently years, signaling a potential increase in conflicts between grassroots people and the authorities, experts said.

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Courts and judges nationwide must properly handle "administrative litigations" to fully protect the public's rights and better supervise administrative bodies, said Wang Shengjun, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), in a letter to a national judicial work conference on Saturday in Dongguan of South China's Guangdong province.

SPC Vice-President Jiang Bixin said at the meeting that courts should deal with cases strictly according to the law, and partiality to the government was harmful to the government's work as well to social stability.

He urged the judiciary to oppose "local policies" upholding protectionism, or meddling from local authorities, in trials.

Jiang also said courts at all levels will launch a half-year campaign to evaluate public petitions over court decisions on administrative litigations, and correct wrongs in administrative litigation verdicts, from late May until the end of this year.

He said the move is to effectively resolve the conflicts, and "remarkably bring down the petition rate in a short time".

SPC figures show that in 2009, courts across the country heard first trials of 6.68 million criminal, administrative, civil and commercial cases. Only 2 percent of the total cases were administrative litigation.

However, among all petitions about court verdicts last year, about 18 percent were regarding administrative litigations, about eight times more than the average level, according to the SPC.

Ying Songnian, a leading professor on administrative law with China University of Political Science and Law, said the campaign will help reduce the complaints and petitions in administration litigations.

"As far as I know, there were not any similar campaigns before, and I believe it will work to help officials better understand the causes of the public's dissatisfaction," he said.

Local courts sometimes dismiss cases due to pressure from local government officials, Ying said.

One of the major functions of administrative litigation is to supervise the government's practice and to correct legal violations, Jiang said.

Public complaints and petitions over court decisions on administrative litigations should be taken seriously to develop a lasting mechanism for resolving disputes, he said.

Jiang also told judges to promptly correct any mistakes in their trials and adjudications.

"Only by admitting and correcting wrongs can the justice department win the trust of the people," he said.

In China, many people believe that petitioning is more effective than litigation in correcting injustice.

The logic is that they can talk directly to senior government officials instead of relying on judicial proceedings that they think are either futile or corrupt.

Many people have thus ventured thousands of kilometers to the capital city in search of redress, where they hope to get help directly from the central authorities.

In late April, 365 villagers from Zhejiang province won a case, in which they accused a local provincial government of illegal land requisition.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

CHINA DAILY