Recent amendments to Chinese law will make it easier for citizens to take the government to court. The National People's Congress (NPC) approved an amendment to Administrative Procedure Law, which stresses people's right to sue, on 1 November. The revised law will take effect from 1 May.

 

But even before the law's formal implementation, Chinese lawyers and judges have already begun to put the spirit of this revision into practice in real trials. 

 

"A private company has dared to stand up to sue and win a trial against a government agency for administrative abuses and monopoly. Mine was the first such case in China," said lawyer Wei Shilin. Wei is representing the plaintiff in the case of Shenzhen Sware Technology against the Department of Education of Guangdong Province. 

 

The Legal Daily newspaper hailed Wei's case as "a breakthrough," 25 years after the implementation of the Administrative Procedure Law and seven years after the passage of China's Anti-Monopoly Law, both of which were intended in part to check abuses of administrative power by government departments.

 

Sware and Wei's story began in early 2014, when China's Ministry of Education decided to organize a "cost engineering" competition for students in construction engineering programs around the country. To select contestants, each province was required to organize provincial level contests. On 1 April, 2014, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education designated Glodon Software as its exclusive provider of construction data software.

 

In the relatively specialized market for construction data software, there are several major providers, including Sware and its competitor Glodon, as well as dozens of smaller companies. 

 

After the Department of Education's administrative order, Sware took the view that the order was an abuse of administrative power and a breach of China's Anti-Monopoly Law. 

 

Finally, on 2 February, 2015, the court issued a verdict stating that, by granting one company's product exclusive status in its contest, the Department of Education of Guangdong Province had in fact used an opaque selection process and abused its administrative power.

 

"The Guangzhou court's verdict is a milestone. This case is a small case but has huge significance in China. A private enterprise brought suit against a government agency for administrative abuses and monopoly - two of the key obstacles to the smooth functioning of a market economy - and won the case. Government intervention into normal market activities might disturb the market's own adjustment," Sheng Jiemin, director of economic law research office at Peking University, told the Global Times. He is also an expert witness in this case.

Name

Email

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment