On The Phenomenon Of Trusting Petition Not Law

Petition institution, established for more than half a century, has been playing asignificant role in China’s social life. On the one hand, it is through petition activitiesthat citizens participate in and deliberate politics, supervise nation’s public power aswell as seek the protection of rights and interests. On the other hand, by the channel ofpetition, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the government listen to opinions ofcitizens, solve social conflicts and conduct social supervision so as to promote socialharmony and stability. However, according to the adjustment of interests and socialtransformation caused by the reform and opening up, expectations for petition is farbeyond its functions and nature. For petition, as a relief method out of judicial reliefprocedures, can promote the realization of civil rights to a certain degree while causethe phenomenon that social excessive depend on the petition but neglect the law. Now,as China is in the transitional period from the rule by man to the rule by law, there arestill some problems such as imperfections of the legal system, juridical bias andcorruption. These problems lead to the functional dislocation of petition institution as itsmain function transforms to be a relief of civil rights instead of being the bridge toconnect the Party and the government with citizens. Petition has an advantage ofsolving disputes and conflicts with the help of administrative authority and involvementof administrative agencies. To some extent, it achieves the substantive justice of citizens.However, it also inevitably misleads citizens to regard petition relief as a right superiorto juridical relief, resulting in citizens’ over-reliance on the relief function ofpetition.Therefore, this situation has led the party and government over-reliance on therelief functions of petition. Finally, it will inevitably bring interference to the judicialpower with the administrative power as well as undermine the independence andauthority of the judiciary.Just like rule by law is the basis of modern nations, administration of justice is thefinial barrier to upholding civil rights. However, the phenomenon of trustin petition notlaw has a great impact on legal concepts such as the supremacy of law and judicialfinality. What is worse, it is not conducive to establishing the legal beliefs in the societyand realizing the government by law in China. Therefore, there is a need to interpretsuch phenomenon. On the basis of this situation, the paper organizes a comprehensiveanalysis of petition system, illustrated the current situation and dangers of the phenomenon of trusting petition not law, and explore reasons of this phenomenon.Finally, solutions of this problem are proposed with the expectation of reversing suchtrend of trusting petition not law and transforming citizens’ reliance of petition relief tothe reliance of juridical relief so as to promote the realization of rule by law in China.