Feng Zhenghu: Commentary on the Application for Administrative Supervision in the Case of Pudong, Shanghai, Landless Farmers Seeking Performance of Duties (Ninth Report in the Series on Landless Farmers in China Defending Their Rights According to Law)

A land requisition compensation dispute spanning more than three decades has, as the rule of law continues to improve, evolved into a procedural dispute over whether “administrative organs should provide a written reply.”

In April 2026, Shi Kehua and 55 other landless farmers from Pudong New Area, Shanghai, formally submitted an Application for Supervision of Administrative Litigation to the Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate. They asked the procuratorial organs to perform their legal supervision duties in accordance with the law and lodge a protest or issue a procuratorial recommendation for a retrial regarding the Supreme People's Court administrative ruling (2025) Zui Gao Fa Xing Shen No. 9077 and the original first- and second-instance rulings.

This case concerns not only the vital interests of 55 landless farmers, but also touches deeply on a central pain point in the implementation of the newly revised Administrative Reconsideration Law: when administrative organs have for a long time “failed to reply” to citizens’ applications asking them to perform duties to protect property rights, can judicial organs use “repetitive handling” or “internal supervision” as grounds to bar the parties from the door to statutory remedies?

I. Case Background: From a Thirty-Year Compensation Dispute to a Long-Running “Procedural Deadlock”

1. Lawful Property Rights and a Compensation Shortfall Left by History

In 1991, the 55 applicants, including Shi Kehua, lawfully obtained the “Shanghai Rural Homestead Use Certificate” issued by the former Chuansha County People's Government, giving them lawful rights to use their homesteads and ownership of their houses. In 1992, their homesteads and houses were requisitioned and demolished for the development and construction of the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone. However, for historical reasons, the shortfall of 4,779.46 square meters in resettlement area and the dispute over compensation for 10,542.3 square meters of homestead land have remained unresolved for more than three decades.

2. Ongoing Inaction and Absurd “Procedural Buck-Passing”

Faced with a problem left over from history, the applicants did not choose to pursue their rights unlawfully. Instead, they consistently sought a resolution through legal channels:

(1) Application for performance of duties: On December 13, 2021, the applicants sent the Pudong New Area People's Government, by express mail, an “Application Requesting the Pudong New Area Government to Perform Its Duties to Protect Property Rights.” The government signed for it the following day. Yet years after the statutory deadline had passed, the Pudong New Area government had issued no written decision or reply of any kind.

(2) Court referred them to petitioning when they sought to sue: In July 2022, the applicants brought an administrative lawsuit over administrative inaction. The court verbally advised them to “first seek a resolution through the government.”

(3) Petitioning authorities at all three levels agreed that they “should pursue litigation”: Following this advice, the applicants petitioned successively, from the Gaoqiao Town Government and Pudong New Area Government to the Shanghai Municipal Government. Written opinions issued by petitioning authorities at all three levels clearly stated that the matter concerned law and litigation and should be resolved through statutory litigation procedures.

(4) They returned to the courts only to be shut out: When the applicants returned to the courts with written opinions from petitioning authorities stating that they “should pursue legal channels,” they encountered difficulties filing their case. They then applied for reconsideration under the new law, only to be denied acceptance on the grounds that the matter was “outside the scope of cases accepted.” Their subsequent lawsuit was rejected at every level.

With departments passing responsibility to one another, a procedural deadlock took shape between the administrative and judicial organs: “the courts refer people to petitioning, petitioning authorities direct them to litigation, and the judiciary then rejects the case again.” Ordinary people have been left with no avenue for redress.

II. Core Issue: Separating the Substantive Dispute from the Defense of the Most Basic “Right to a Procedural Reply”

It must be made clear that the core of the applicants’ request for supervision from the procuratorial organs is not to ask the judicial organs to force a ruling in the proceedings on the amount of substantive compensation from thirty years ago. Rather, it is a clear, independent and lawful procedural request—to order the administrative organ, in accordance with the law, to provide a written reply to their 2021 application for performance of duties.

Providing a written reply within the statutory time limit in response to a citizen’s application is an independent statutory procedural obligation, and does not depend on whether the substantive request is fully justified. By crudely equating the parties’ “right to request a procedural reply” with their “substantive compensation claim” from thirty years ago, and directly extinguishing their right to procedural remedies on the grounds of the complexity of a historical issue, rulings at all levels have committed a serious “bait-and-switch” in their legal reasoning.

III. Legal Analysis: Four Fundamental Errors in the Application of Law in the Rulings

A review of the rulings at all levels in this case reveals systemic errors in the application of law by the judicial and administrative organs, compounded and entrenched at each successive level:

Error One: Selectively evading the new Administrative Reconsideration Law and nullifying the results of legislative reform

Article 11, paragraph 1, item (11) of the newly revised Administrative Reconsideration Law, which took effect on January 1, 2024, expressly provides that an administrative reconsideration case may be brought when a citizen “applies for an administrative organ to perform its statutory duties to protect lawful rights and interests such as personal rights, property rights and the right to education, and the administrative organ refuses to perform, fails to perform according to law, or fails to reply.”

The applicants filed their reconsideration application on the 19th day after the new law took effect (January 19, 2024), squarely meeting the requirements of this provision. Yet the reconsideration organ and the courts adopted “selective silence” toward the key provision of the new law expressly cited by the parties, using the entrenched review practices of the old-law era to undermine the legislative intent established by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress: to “give full play to the role of administrative reconsideration as the main channel for resolving administrative disputes.”

Error Two: Incorrectly classifying the case as “repetitive handling,” erecting an improper “procedural iron curtain”

The Supreme People's Court ruling cited Article 1, paragraph 2, item (4) of the Interpretation of the Administrative Litigation Law, classifying this case as “repetitive handling.” However, application of this exclusionary provision must satisfy the requirements of “same parties, same subject matter and same basis”:

1. Different subject matter: The subject matter of the reconsideration in this case is the Pudong New Area government's ongoing administrative inaction in “failing to reply” in 2021, not a historical decision made previously;

2. Different basis: This case is based on the new Administrative Reconsideration Law, which in 2024 granted citizens a new avenue for remedies;

3. Ongoing conduct: The administrative organ’s “failure to reply” constitutes an ongoing unlawful state.

Turning a provision intended to prevent endless litigation into a “shield” for refusing to provide citizens with remedies under the new law seriously distorts the legislative purpose of the system.

Error Three: Confusing “internal hierarchical supervision” with “external procedural rights of request”

The ruling mistakenly classified citizens’ requests for the government to perform its duties as “requests for a superior to exercise hierarchical supervision over a subordinate.” In fact, when citizens’ own lawful property rights have been harmed, their request that the local government perform its statutory duties in accordance with the law exercises an external procedural right of request conferred by the Constitution and the law. Whether the administrative organ performs its duties and whether it replies directly produce legal effects externally; these are by no means merely matters of internal administrative management.

Error Four: Substituting petition-handling for statutory remedies, in open violation of the Regulations on Petition Work

Article 31 of the Regulations on Petition Work clearly provides that petitioning and statutory channels such as litigation and reconsideration must be connected to one another, and that petition-handling must not be substituted for statutory remedies. A reply to a petition does not have the force of res judicata, and cannot serve as an excuse to deprive parties of their rights to sue or seek reconsideration. Petitioning departments at all three levels have clearly stated that this case should be resolved through statutory procedures. Yet the judicial organs have instead shut the door to the rule of law on the grounds that petition records exist. This not only runs counter to the original purpose of the system, but has also directly caused the procedures to go around in circles.

IV. The Statutory Responsibility of Procuratorial Supervision: Activating Trial Supervision and Breaking the Deadlock in Defending Rights

Under Articles 91 and 93 of the Administrative Litigation Law and the Rules of the People's Procuratorates on Supervision of Administrative Litigation, the People's Procuratorates bear the constitutional mandate of exercising legal supervision over effective administrative judgments and rulings. When a final judicial ruling contains fundamental errors in fact-finding and application of law, resulting in the systematic deprivation of citizens’ rights to sue and procedural rights, procuratorial supervision is the last safety valve in the rule-of-law defense line.

The requests made to the Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate by Shi Kehua and 55 other landless farmers are clear:

1. Initiate trial supervision: In accordance with the law, lodge a protest against the Supreme People's Court administrative ruling (2025) Zui Gao Fa Xing Shen No. 9077, or issue a procuratorial recommendation for a retrial;

2. Correct the erroneous rulings: Set aside the original first-instance, second-instance and retrial rulings, and revoke the Shanghai Municipal Government’s decision not to accept the case;

3. Order performance of duties according to law: Order the reconsideration organ to accept the case in accordance with the new Administrative Reconsideration Law, or order the Pudong New Area government to issue a formal written reply, in accordance with the law and within the statutory time limit, to the 2021 application for performance of duties;

4. Unify the standards for rulings: In response to common problems in the application of law, such as “abuse of the repetitive handling provision” and “failure to ensure the proper transition between old and new laws,” issue procuratorial recommendations to the Supreme People's Court and relevant departments to bring administrative disputes genuinely within the rule of law.

V. Conclusion: Making Justice Visible Through Statutory Procedures

Procedural justice is the cornerstone of substantive justice. The core of administrative rule of law is that when faced with the lawful demands of ordinary people, administrative power must not “turn a deaf ear,” and judicial organs should not “put up barriers” when reviewing citizens’ rights to sue.

The more than thirty-year rights defense journey of 55 landless farmers in Pudong is a mirror reflecting the rule-of-law environment at the grassroots level and the credibility of the judiciary. What they seek is not only a written government reply that is several years overdue, but also the legal dignity and procedural safeguards that every ordinary citizen should have when facing public power.

It is hoped that the Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate will perform its legal supervision duties in accordance with the law, break through the procedural ice with a commitment to the rule of law, ensure that the legislative dividends of the new Administrative Reconsideration Law truly benefit the people, and enable the public to tangibly experience fairness and justice in every case and at every procedural stage.

Author: Feng Zhenghu

September 29, 2026