To uphold the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, they should be encouraged to resolve disputes using the law

China has entered a crucial stage of reform and opening-up and a period of intensive social contradictions.

As a result, many citizens, believing they have suffered alleged unequal or unjust treatment, are seeking ways to petition higher-level governments about their grievances.

Related readings: Arms of the law must act stronger  Hu calls for govt to administrate by law  Proposed law to curb domestic abuse

To effectively resolve these social contradictions while they are still in their infancy and uphold the legitimate rights and interests of the people and maintain social harmony and stability, effective measures should be taken to encourage or guide people to resort to legal means instead of petitioning higher-level governments.

China has forged a socialist legal system with its own characteristics and has basically realized legally ruled governance across society, which means that all disputes, including those between individuals and local governments, can now be resolved under the current legal framework.

The government should no longer have to be the judge in all legal cases, a third party that has no direct relations or interests with the government or petitioners, should be introduced. Also, the government and some social organizations should try to establish a well-developed legal aid mechanism to assist those who would otherwise be unable to use the legal system to defend their rights.

China's local governments have been heavily involved in civil and economic disputes. That is largely because whether local officials can effectively resolve these disputes and reduce the number of petitions made to higher-level governments has been taken as an important index to gauge their political performance.

As a result, local officials have chosen to take all available measures, even heavy-handed measures, to stop people petitioning higher-level governments, in a bid to reduce the number of such cases within the territory under their jurisdiction. This not only wastes a lot of local government manpower and financial resources, it also contravenes the regulation issued by the State Council that petitioners are entitled to present their grievances to higher-level governments and that local governments have no power to intervene.