Folk Demolition Rule Handed to Top Legislature

A law firm in China Friday released its self-made demolition rule to the public and handed it to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and the State Council Legislative Affairs Office, the Beijing Times reports.

Forty lawyers of the Beijing-based Shengting Law Firm made the folk demolition rule when a new "regulation on the requisition and compensation of properties on state-owned land" is soliciting public opinions from December 15 to 30.

This is the second time for the regulation to solicit public opinions. It took the government three years to draft the regulation. The first time to solicit opinions from the public was this past January, with 65,601 suggestions received and discussion meetings held.

Yang Zaiming, chief lawyer with the Shengting Law Firm, told the Beijing Times that law firms as legal practitioners should have more voice in matters of legislation and his law firm, which handled 638 demolition-related cases from March to September in 2007, is professional enough to make the folk demolition rule.

Yang stressed that their demolition rule paid more attention to the residents' interests since the rule adopted many comments from them. Moreover, different from the national draft law, the folk rule covered requisition and compensation of properties on rural collective land, asking for more economic interests for the peasants.

"The national version cares more about the efficiency and the need of urbanization in overall interest while our version stands for more interests of the residents, most of those belong to grassroots. I believe this is a good way for the grassroots to participate in the legislation. I hope the two versions could be mutually used for reference." Yang said.