Citizens seek legal help to resolve disputes, taking court rulings as society's ultimate guarantee of justice.

As a primary organ of state power, the courts are supposed to ensure justice prevails.

But our courts have long been hampered by various obstacles. In many cases, verdicts are not worth the paper they are written on.

The Communist Party of China central authorities' decision to deal with court rulings that are not enforced represents a sensible starting point for consolidating the authority of the law.

The proposal to link a nationwide information network on the implementation of court rulings to a database containing records of objections to court rulings shows fresh thinking.

The idea of forcing people to take their legal obligations seriously, through limits on or bans of such activities as fund-raising, property procurement, luxury consumption and border control may prove to be very effective.

Such information sharing is targeted at what has been referred to as a "State deterrence mechanism" for implementing court rulings. It may serve that end well.

A key factor behind rampant resistance to the enforcement of unfavourable court rulings is the absence of meaningful accountability mechanisms. As a result, not only individuals and private enterprises, but State firms and government offices disregard court decisions without paying a price.

One of the most annoying aspects of this phenomenon is barricades erected by local judicial or administrative authorities against court decisions considered to go against local interests.

Making people pay for their misconduct is a logical response. The only deterrent preventing contempt for the law is demonstrating the coercive potential of State power.

The CPC legal authorities' initiative makes sense because it works on the principle of making the guilty pay the price. We can thus be reasonably optimistic about the result of the Supreme People's Court's decision to clear court rulings that have not been enforced before June.

As an important part of the court system's campaign to regulate enforcement and promote fairness, the new initiative also attempts to eradicate local and departmental protectionism.

Architects of the new mechanism were aiming for immediate improvements. Talk of the rule of law previously sounded hollow.

Another positive aspect of the crusade against ignored court verdicts would be the rectification of local and departmental decrees that conflict with national legislation, or obstruct the implementation of court decisions. That will prove even more significant than case by case clearing.

But we cannot afford to neglect legitimacy.

We have heard a lot about effectiveness in discussions of the campaign, but little about the legal connotations of the measures proposed. Since the government wants to safeguard the authority of the law, full legitimacy must be ensured.

(China Daily January 25, 2006)