Zhejiang human rights defender Chen Shuqing receives written response only nearly four months after filing lawsuit over pension rights

(Information Center of Rights Defense Network report) On September 3, 2026, this outlet learned that in the case brought by plaintiff Chen Shuqing against the Hangzhou Gongshu District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Government concerning the “administrative confirmation and administrative reconsideration” of Chen Shuqing’s eligibility to receive a pension and the determination of his valid contribution period, he finally received a formal written response on September 2, 2026, from the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Court confirming acceptance of the case, after nearly four months of twists and turns. How difficult is it to get a case accepted? The process is reviewed below:

On May 12, 2026, plaintiff Chen Shuqing sent the “Statement of Claim” by express mail through the post office to the Gongshu District People’s Court. The mail tracking record showed that at 09:02 on the morning of May 13, 2026, it had been【signed for by the unit’s mailroom】. Later, at around 9 a.m. on May 26, around 9:15 a.m. on June 9, and around 9 a.m. on June 25, he went three times to the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Court, located at No. 109 Xiangjisi East Road in this city, to inquire about the status of case filing. At around 9:30 a.m. on June 9 and around 2:45 p.m. on June 26, he also separately called the case-filing supervision telephone number 89508823 given to him by the administrative case-filing window to inquire about the status of filing. Each time, he was told that they had not received it and that he should wait. Plaintiff Chen Shuqing felt that this situation was highly abnormal and questioned whether the court was also “lying flat.” The window staff then revealed that the case might be relatively complicated and told him to wait longer and that they would notify him promptly when there was news.

At around 9:40 a.m. on July 14, 2026, more than two months after the complaint had been submitted, Chen Shuqing once again went to the administrative case-filing window of the Gongshu District People’s Court to inquire. The window staff first told him to wait. About five minutes later, she came out and successively called two security guards over to delete from his mobile phone the audio recording they suspected he had made while handling the filing, and clearly told him that audio recording, video recording, and photography were strictly prohibited at the case-filing window. I thought that in any place where audio recording, video recording, and photography are strictly prohibited, once a dispute arises over the facts that occurred at the scene, the burden of proof should be reversed, with the party that prohibited audio recording, video recording, and photography while having cameras spread throughout the premises bearing the burden of proof. Therefore, I allowed them to delete from my phone the records they believed should be deleted, and loudly said to one of the security guards, who was deleting my phone records and wearing a law-enforcement recorder on his chest, “The audio records inside are objective facts. You should not delete them. I hope you will not destroy evidence in order to evade responsibility.” The security guard smiled and said, “We are deleting them according to the rules. The court will not evade responsibility.” After they deleted the records from my phone, the window staff returned the original complaint initially received by the court and asked me to revise it according to their requirements. She said that it was not permissible to include references to international conventions or the issue of slave labor. I said, “The international conventions cited in the complaint have already been approved by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. The prohibition of slave labor is stipulated in specific provisions within them, and the fact that forced, unpaid labor is widespread in Chinese prisons is also a fact. I, the plaintiff, have raised every point in the complaint. If the court considers them untrue, unlawful, or unreasonable, it can fully issue a judgment refuting and dismissing them. Not allowing the plaintiff to raise them is unreasonable, unjust, and should also be unlawful.” But the case-filing window staff said: “This is a Chinese court, and this is an administrative trial division. If you do not agree to revise it as we require, then we simply will not file the case.”

In order to establish a record of the litigation process and prevent the court from evading responsibility and refusing to file the case, I had no choice but to revise the complaint as required by the case-filing window staff. At around 2:55 p.m. on July 14, I submitted the abridged and revised “Administrative Complaint” to the administrative litigation window. After repeatedly checking it, the window staff asked me to sign and date it separately with “Chen Shuqing” and “July 14, 2026,” and to write “revised draft” after the date, after which she accepted the complaint. I asked whether the case could now be filed. She said, “It will be decided after a judge has reviewed it. I will notify you by telephone when it is done.” I said that I did not want it to be delayed for another two months without a result on filing. She said, “The law provides that you will receive a response within seven working days.” I then left the court reassured. At around 9:10 a.m. on July 22, 2026, I again went to the case-filing window of the Gongshu court to inquire about the status of filing. The window staff required standardized adjustments and corrections to the cause of action and claims in the “Administrative Complaint.” That afternoon, I submitted the further revised and corrected “Administrative Complaint” to the administrative case-filing window. After waiting more than ten days without any news, at around 9:10 a.m. on August 5, 2026, I again went to the administrative case-filing window of the Gongshu Court to inquire about the status of filing. The window staff said that the case had already been filed on July 29. I asked for the case number, and the window staff handwrote a small note for me that said, “2026 Zhejiang 0105 Administrative Pre-litigation Mediation No. 139, Judge Deng, Clerk Hu, 89508971,” and informed me that the case could be formally filed only after the copies had been served on the defendants and the defendants had responded as to whether they agreed to pre-litigation mediation. The result of that stage would not be available until the end of August or the beginning of September.

On September 2, 2026, plaintiff Chen Shuqing received an express postal delivery (EMS) from the Gongshu Court. It was printed with “2026 Zhejiang 0105 Administrative Pre-litigation Mediation No. 139” and contained one copy of the “Notice on the Judicial Fairness Code,” as well as the administrative statement of defense, evidence list, and evidence submitted to the court by the two defendants in this case, the Hangzhou Gongshu District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Government. At this point, Chen Shuqing’s administrative lawsuit over his pension rights had finally received a formal written response, nearly four months after the initial submission of the administrative complaint. Procedurally and formally, the case remains at the pre-litigation mediation stage. Although the defendants have submitted statements of defense and clearly refused to make concessions through pre-litigation mediation, because a formal notice of case filing and the case number for this administrative litigation have not yet been received, it should be said that the case remains in a state in which the court has accepted it but has not formally filed it.

Compare this with Article 51 of the “Administrative Litigation Law of the People’s Republic of China”: “When a people’s court receives a complaint, it shall register and file the case if the complaint meets the conditions for filing stipulated by this Law.” “Where it is impossible to determine on the spot whether a complaint meets the conditions for filing stipulated by this Law, the people’s court shall receive the complaint, issue a written document indicating the date of receipt, and decide within seven days whether to file the case. If the complaint does not meet the conditions for filing, it shall issue a ruling refusing to file the case. The ruling shall state the reasons for refusing to file the case. If the plaintiff is dissatisfied with the ruling, the plaintiff may appeal.” “Where the content of a complaint is incomplete or contains other errors, guidance and clarification shall be provided, and the parties shall be informed in one go of the content that needs to be corrected. A complaint may not be rejected on the grounds that it does not meet the conditions for filing without guidance and clarification.” “Where a complaint is not accepted, a written receipt is not issued after a complaint is accepted, or the parties are not informed in one go of the content of the complaint that needs to be corrected, the parties may lodge a complaint with a higher-level people’s court. The higher-level people’s court shall order correction and impose sanctions in accordance with the law on the directly responsible主管人员 and other directly responsible personnel.” Article 67 provides: “A people’s court shall send a copy of the complaint to the defendant within five days from the date of filing the case. The defendant shall, within 15 days from the date of receiving a copy of the complaint, submit to the people’s court the evidence of the administrative action and the regulatory documents on which it was based, and submit a statement of defense. The people’s court shall send a copy of the statement of defense to the plaintiff within five days from the date of receiving it.” There is much to reflect on.

The “Administrative Complaint” accepted by the court only after being revised on July 22 deleted the references in the original complaint to human rights conventions signed by the Chinese government and approved by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, as well as the content concerning forced, unpaid labor in prisons. Although these two deletions removed powerful support for the plaintiff’s claims, considering the current situation of the case, in which the administrative action remains in the illogical state of the administrative organ at fault bearing no responsibility while making the innocent party bear responsibility by losing the protection of legitimate reliance interests, and given that the grounds in the “Administrative Complaint” submitted by the plaintiff and ultimately accepted by the court are sufficiently full and forceful, I know that the slogans displayed prominently in every court proclaiming, “Let the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case,” are bound to face another severe test.

The “Administrative Complaint” submitted by the plaintiff after revision on July 22 and accepted by the court is as follows:

ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLAINT

Plaintiff: Chen Shuqing, male, Han ethnicity, born on September 26, 1965, from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, currently residing at Room 202, Unit 5, Building 6, Daguan Yuan East Fifth Garden, Gongshu District, Hangzhou, ID number 330106196509260073, telephone 15958160478.

Defendant One: Hangzhou Gongshu District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau

Address: No. 1 Wenhui Road, Gongshu District, Hangzhou; telephone: 0571-89505558

Person in charge: Lin Yi Position: Director

Defendant Two: Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Government

Address: No. 1 Taizhou Road, Gongshu District, Hangzhou; telephone: 0571-89509522

Person in charge: Chen Yu Position: District Mayor

Cause of action: Administrative Confirmation and Administrative Reconsideration

Claims:

1. The plaintiff requests that the “Notice on the Handling of the Matter” issued by Defendant One, the Hangzhou Gongshu District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, to the plaintiff on December 25, 2025, be revoked;

2. The plaintiff requests that the “Administrative Reconsideration Decision of the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Government,” Hangongzhengfu Reconsideration [2026] No. 67, issued by Defendant Two, the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Government, be revoked.

Facts and grounds:

On December 25, 2025, plaintiff Chen Shuqing had reached the age of 60 years and three months, and had in fact paid into the social insurance pool for 24 years and four months, exceeding the minimum contribution period of 15 years. When handling retirement procedures in December 2025, employees of Defendant One, the Hangzhou Gongshu District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, on the grounds that the plaintiff had been sentenced to four years in prison in 2007 for the crime of inciting subversion of state power and to 10 years and six months in prison in 2016 for the crime of subversion of state power, deducted the cumulative periods of the two prison sentences from his social security contribution period, leaving only more than nine years of contributions, which was less than the minimum contribution period, and refused to handle the plaintiff’s retirement procedures.

During repeated negotiations, dissatisfied with Defendant One’s staff remaining vague and merely saying orally that this was “according to relevant policies,” the plaintiff submitted an application for government information disclosure. On December 25, 2025, Chen Zupeng, a staff member of Defendant One, issued to the plaintiff in his office the “Notice on the Handling of the Matter by the Hangzhou Gongshu District Social Insurance Management Service Center,” the “Notice,” and the “Reply on Issues Concerning Basic Pension Insurance for Persons Sentenced to Fixed-Term Imprisonment (This Document Is Disclosed Upon Request)” (Zhejiang Human Resources and Social Security Reply [2010] No. 358), formally confirming in writing Defendant One’s decision to refuse to handle the plaintiff’s retirement procedures.

The plaintiff believes that the laws on which the aforementioned documents were based were improperly applied and that the policies lacked sufficient legal effect. On January 27, 2026, he applied for administrative reconsideration concerning this matter. On April 30, 2026, Defendant Two, the Gongshu District People’s Government, issued the “Administrative Reconsideration Decision of the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Government,” Hangongzhengfu Reconsideration [2026] No. 67, upholding the aforementioned “Notice” issued by the respondent, namely Defendant One in this case, refusing to handle Chen Shuqing’s retirement procedures. The plaintiff disagrees and now brings an administrative lawsuit before your court, requesting that the case be heard in accordance with the law and that a fair judgment be issued.

The plaintiff believes that the spirit of contracts is the cornerstone enabling modern civilized society to operate stably; the people take officials as their example, and the honesty and trustworthiness of the entire society require government conduct to set an example. Over the past 20-plus years in this case, the plaintiff, the plaintiff’s family members, and the organizations for which the plaintiff worked or through which the plaintiff was affiliated for social security purposes paid social insurance contributions for the plaintiff. They never received clear notification that contributions could not be made during a period of imprisonment. Even after the plaintiff’s most recent release from prison on March 10, 2025, he went several times to the government service center of Defendant One at No. 58 Xiangjisi East Road in Gongshu District to make up social security contributions for the most recent years during which payments had lapsed, including some periods during his prison sentence, and completed the payments without difficulty. When the defendant collected insurance contributions, everything was fine. Now that the defendant is required to fulfill its insurance obligations, it has suddenly changed its position, using the excuse that the contributions were “irregularly enrolled and paid” to refuse to fulfill the social insurance responsibilities it should bear, while making the payer, the plaintiff Chen Shuqing, unilaterally bear the adverse consequences of the alleged “irregularity.” This has completely nullified the principle of protecting the people’s legitimate reliance interests in government conduct.

It can be seen from the “Notice” provided by Defendant One that the reason for overturning the agreement and refusing to fulfill its social insurance responsibilities toward the plaintiff was as follows: according to Article 2, paragraph 1, of the “Labor Law of the People’s Republic of China,” “This Law applies to enterprises, individual economic organizations (hereinafter collectively referred to as employing units) within the territory of the People’s Republic of China and laborers who have established labor relationships with them”; Article 72, “Employing units and laborers must participate in social insurance and pay social insurance premiums in accordance with the law”; Article 10, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the “Social Insurance Law of the People’s Republic of China,” “Employees shall participate in basic pension insurance, with basic pension insurance premiums jointly paid by the employing unit and the employee. Individual industrial and commercial households without employees, part-time workers who have not participated in basic pension insurance through an employing unit, and other flexibly employed persons may participate in basic pension insurance, with premiums paid by the individual”; and the “Reply of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security on Issues Concerning Basic Pension Insurance for Persons Sentenced to Fixed-Term Imprisonment” (Zhejiang Human Resources and Social Security Reply [2010] No. 358), which provides that “persons serving prison sentences are not participants in basic pension insurance for employees during their prison terms.”

It is self-evident that the provisions in the above-mentioned “Labor Law” and “Social Insurance Law,” including those in the “Regulations of Zhejiang Province on Basic Pension Insurance for Employees,” require employing units and laborers to pay social insurance premiums. Their legislative purpose is to protect the social insurance rights of workers; they contain no mandatory provision stating that “persons serving prison sentences may not participate in social insurance.” As for the “Reply” Zhejiang Human Resources and Social Security Reply [2010] No. 358, it is marked “this document is disclosed upon request.” Under the principle that laws are ineffective before they are promulgated, “disclosure upon request” cannot be equated with “promulgation” and has no force against an uninformed affected person. The “Reply” is dated “September 30, 20XX,” and was issued on October 9, 2010; it therefore clearly has no retroactive effect on the plaintiff’s contributions during his first four-year prison term, which ended on September 13, 2010. Moreover, the “Reply” does not possess the level or effect of laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, autonomous regulations and separate regulations, or rules as set out in the “Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China.” It is a set of “competition rules” formulated by a government department without legislative authority that is “both player and referee.” The provision in it that “persons serving prison sentences may not participate in social insurance” clearly falls within Article 99 of the “Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on the Application of the Administrative Litigation Law of the People’s Republic of China,” which took effect on February 8, 2018, as a typical circumstance in which an administrative subject is “seriously and manifestly unlawful”: “Second, reducing rights (in this case: the law does not expressly prohibit it, but the ‘Reply’ prohibits it) or increasing obligations (in combination with current policy, the result of the ‘Reply’ in this case is to require the plaintiff to make additional continuous social security contributions every year after reaching age 60 until, five years later, he is allowed to make up the contributions to 15 years and thereby obtain the retirement eligibility he should have had long ago), where the administrative action has no legal basis.” Therefore, the “Reply” cannot serve as the basis for the government’s own breach of contract. As the saying goes, “Without morality, law cannot stand.” The principle of a good law—for example, Article 99 of the Supreme People’s Court’s “Interpretation” on the application of administrative litigation—should not merely be formally promulgated, but should also be applied in judicial practice.

When the plaintiff was negotiating with employees of Defendant One, one employee explained: “During the time you were in prison, you could not become a genuine worker of the paying enterprise specified in the aforementioned provisions of the ‘Labor Law’ and other laws. Your employee pension insurance was merely a fictitious form of payment on your behalf and did not comply with the law and policy.” The plaintiff argued at the time: “Payment of social security contributions on someone’s behalf has not been expressly prohibited by law to this day. It is a policy that has been tacitly permitted and widely implemented in practice since social insurance pooling began. For more than 20 years, many frontline employees of government offices and public institutions, including your human resources and social security departments, have not actually worked at labor-dispatch agencies, but have had remuneration paid and social security contributions made on their behalf by labor-dispatch agencies. You cannot apply double standards to others and yourselves.” They replied: “Labor dispatch has a legal basis.” After further studying the laws, regulations, rules, and history and current situation of the use of labor-dispatch workers by government offices and public institutions, the plaintiff discovered that this attempted, in the form of “legality,” to exceed the provisions of the law and conceal the identity-based occupational discrimination caused by the actual dual-track system inside and outside the staffing establishment. It seriously violated the “equal pay for equal work” requirements of the “Labor Law,” the “Labor Contract Law,” and other laws. It exceeded the legally authorized scope of employers because Article 2 of the “Interim Provisions on Labor Dispatch” expressly provides: “Where a labor-dispatch unit engages in labor-dispatch business, and an enterprise (hereinafter referred to as the employing unit) uses dispatched workers, these provisions shall apply. Where legally established accounting firms, law firms, and other partnership organizations, foundations, and private non-enterprise units and other organizations use dispatched workers, these provisions shall apply.” It does not include government offices or public institutions among employing units that may use dispatched workers. Moreover, in recent years, relevant state departments have expressly prohibited this in corrective and improvement measures. For example, Article 10 of Ministry of Finance Order No. 102, the “Measures for the Administration of Government Procurement of Services,” provides: “The following items may not be included within the scope of government procurement of services: … recruitment and employment of personnel by the purchasing entity, employment through labor dispatch, and the establishment of public-welfare positions.” The plaintiff believes that Defendant One used the power in its hands to characterize the plaintiff’s social insurance rights as “irregular” on the basis that “the law does not include” them—“prohibiting what the law does not prohibit”—while abusing its power to use large numbers of labor-dispatch workers despite having “no legal authorization.” This conduct by Defendant One not only openly violated the basic requirement of a society governed by the rule of law that “what the law does not prohibit is permitted for citizens, while what the law does not authorize is prohibited for government power,” but also became another typical case of “allowing the officials to set fires while forbidding ordinary people from lighting lamps.”

The applicant believes that he has reached the statutory age for retirement eligibility and benefits. In addition to the actual contribution period described above and the principle of protecting reliance interests in government, not one provision of any current law expressly states that persons serving prison sentences may not participate in social insurance, including making social security contributions. The judgments imposing the plaintiff’s two prison sentences deprived him of personal freedom and political rights for specified periods, but did not deprive him of socioeconomic rights, which of course include the right to enjoy social insurance.

In conclusion, given that the plaintiff’s actual social security contribution period of 24 years and four months exceeds the prescribed minimum contribution period of 15 years, and given that the “Notice” and “Notice on the Handling of the Matter” issued by Defendant One and the “Reconsideration Decision” issued by Defendant Two all ignore the following facts and their legal effects, which cannot be disregarded by a government and its organs operating under the rule of law in administration:

(1) When the plaintiff himself, the enterprises where he worked, and his family members paid or made up social security contributions in the past, they were never informed that contributions could not be made during a prison term. Before the plaintiff filed an “Application for Government Information Disclosure” when handling confirmation of his retirement eligibility in this case, the “Reply of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security [2010] No. 358 (This Document Is Disclosed Upon Request)” had never been made public and cannot be used by the government to breach its agreement and evade its obligations against an uninformed affected person, thereby seriously harming the principle of protecting reliance interests in government conduct;

(2) In interpreting and applying the “scope” of the application of law, the defendant applies double standards to itself and others. Regarding its own recruitment and use of personnel, it openly and extensively uses labor-dispatch workers despite the “law not including” this practice, seriously infringing the legal requirement of equal pay for equal work. Yet regarding the plaintiff’s social insurance rights, it excludes them as “irregular” on the grounds that “the law does not include” them. This conduct of “allowing the officials to set fires while forbidding ordinary people from lighting lamps” violates the basic requirements of a society governed by the rule of law: “Government conduct is prohibited without legal authorization, while conduct by the public is permitted unless prohibited by law”;

(3) The “Labor Law of the People’s Republic of China,” the “Social Insurance Law of the People’s Republic of China,” and any other normative document possessing the legal status and effect encompassed by the “Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China” contain no mandatory provision expressly excluding participants in social insurance during their prison terms.

If the two defendants cannot respond to the three grounds raised above by the plaintiff concerning the focal points of the dispute—whether by acknowledging them or rebutting them in accordance with the law—it indicates that the defendants’ administrative breach of trust in this case cannot withstand serious scrutiny under the law. If they refuse to respond out of disdain, this suggests the unchecked arrogance of power, which is an even greater taboo in building a society and government governed by the rule of law and should be stopped and prevented.

Accordingly, the plaintiff hereby brings this administrative lawsuit, requests that your court adjudicate the case in accordance with the law and support the plaintiff’s claims, revoke the “Notice on the Handling of the Matter” issued by Defendant One to the plaintiff on December 25, 2025, and the “Administrative Reconsideration Decision of the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Government,” Hangongzhengfu Reconsideration [2026] No. 67, issued by Defendant Two, and compel Defendant One to promptly handle the plaintiff’s retirement eligibility and fulfill its social insurance responsibilities toward the plaintiff on the basis of a contribution period of 24 years and four months.

To:

Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Court

Submitted by: Chen Shuqing

July 22, 2026 (revised draft)

Attachments: 1. Two copies of this complaint;

2. One copy of the plaintiff Chen Shuqing’s identity card, including both the front and back;

3. One copy of the “Historical Social Pension Insurance Participation Certificate”;

4. One photocopy of the “Notice on the Handling of the Matter by the Hangzhou Gongshu District Social Insurance Management Service Center”;

5. One copy of the “Notice” bearing the seal of the “Hangzhou Gongshu District Social Insurance Management Service Center”;

6. One photocopy of the “Zhejiang Human Resources and Social Security Reply [2010] No. 358”;

7. One copy of the “Administrative Reconsideration Decision of the Hangzhou Gongshu District People’s Government,” Hangongzhengfu Reconsideration [2026] No. 67.