Beijing's first case concerning China's landmark Property Law
was put before the courts on Monday, a week after the law came into
effect.
A 60-year-old man surnamed Shen filed a lawsuit to the Beijing
Changping Intermediate People's Court against the Zhongjiaxin
auction company for auctioning off this September six apartments he
bought for 1.2 million yuan in 1998 from a Mr. Yan.
Yan was convicted of taking bribes in 2002 and had his property
confiscated. The Intermediate People's Court of Shijiazhuang in
Hebei ruled that the houses were owned by Yan and entrusted the
Zhongjiaxin auction company to conduct the sale.
Shen said that if he failed to retrieve his houses, he would sue
the Intermediate People's Court of Shijiazhuang and ask for
compensation from the government.
However the court hearing was deferred because the auction
company "didn't receive the subpoena", according to Li Bing, from
the auction house.
"Shen's appeal was in accordance with the fourth and 64th
articles of the Property Law, which ensures an individual's lawful
possession of property and the inviolability," said Wang Liming,
head of the Law School of the Renmin University of China and also
one of the drafters of the law.
The law, approved by the national legislature in March after
repeated revisions and an unprecedented eight readings, is aimed to
provide equal protection to both state and private properties
The 247-article law stipulates that no units or individuals may
infringe upon the property of the state, the collective and the
individual.
The concept of improving the protection of private property was
first brought up at the 16th National Congress of the Communist
Party of China held in November 2002. In March 2004, the NPC
adopted a major amendment to the Constitution, stating that
people's lawful private property is inviolable.
(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2007)
