Taking Abnormal Petition Activities Seriously With Law

In the4th Seminar on the Promotion of the Rule of Law in a comprehensiveway convened by the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, President Xi pointedout that: government officials at different levels must use the Rule of Law mentalityand methods to deepen reforms, promote development, resolve conflicts, and buildthe capacity to maintain social stability, creating a law-abiding environment in whichpeople learn to conduct businesses according to the law, resort to the law when theyrun into difficulties, and solve problems by means of the law, resolve conflictsaccording to the law, and promote all kinds of work by the rule of law. At theNational Working Conference on Politics and Law held at the beginning of the NewYear, the reform of law-and-lawsuit-related petition has been singled out as one ofthe top priorities of2013. It is imperative for us to properly solvelaw-and-lawsuit-related petition by rule of law so as to change the mentality of thegeneral public to blindly believe in personal visits instead of the law, to believe inhigher-ranking authorities rather than local authorities. The formulation of such ameasure by the CPC Central Committee is to facilitate the legal aid and improve thegeneral public’s trust in law.Experiences over the past few years seem to suggest that police-related petition,which is a major part of law-and-lawsuit-related petition, is now becoming more andmore complicated. This has, to a large extent, damaged the image of the lawenforcement forces, and affected police-and-general-public relationship. Therefore, itis significant for the establishment of a harmonious society and the safeguarding of astable society to properly assess the positioning of police-related petition, to analyzethe dilemma of the right of the police in the current petition system which is becoming more and more complex, and to probe into the ways of how we can treatabnormal petition activities by rule of law.This paper attempts to reflect on how we can use the law to treat abnormalpetition activities by comparing and analyzing the data of Fujian police agenciesover the last two years, and analyze the current dilemma of the petition system bydrawing on the literature, both home and abroad, on the issue. This paper alsoattempts to analyze abnormal petition activities from the perspective of legalsociology, that is, from the perspectives of the mechanism, visitors and letter writers,and police agencies. Before we analyze abnormal petition activities, we introduce thegeneral strategies that have been taken by the government and the visitors and letterwriters. Then we probe into how police agencies could involve in abnormal petitionactivities, especially from the definition of the rights of the police, the positioning ofthe police and the allocation of resources. We explain the helplessness andembarrassment of the police in face of abnormal petition activities from theperspective of the mechanism. The solution to the problem lies in the treatment ofabnormal petition activities through the law. This paper also proposes some possiblesolutions to the problem, such of the formulation of specific laws, the introduction ofhearings, the interference of a third party, the enhancement of law enforcementsupervision, the perfecting of the responsibility-based petition system, and theuniversalization of the law and the improvement of the evaluation system.