Legislators in East China's Zhejiang Province are considering drawing up stricter rules for government agencies when handling the complaints, in the light of the growth of this phenomenon.

According to the revised draft, which was being discussed at the provincial people's congress on Tuesday, government agencies should handle the problems raised by petitioners within five working days.

If the problem does not concern that particular government agency, it should transfer the appeal to the relevant body within 5 days, the revised draft stipulates.

Meanwhile, petitioners have the right to know how the problem is being dealt with and what is the result.

According to Chinese law, people may write letters to or visit higher authorities to express their concerns and appeal for intervention.

The system of letters and visits is regarded as a fundamental channel for ordinary people to air their complaints and discontent.

However, due to some local government’s failure to solve problems carefully and patiently, or just trying to keep the petitioners quiet in order to maintain social stability, more and more irate people, from all over the country, converged on Beijing to appeal to the nation's highest leadership for intervention.

Some high-profile areas where the central organs of power locate usually receive hundreds of petitioners every day.

According to statistics provided by the National People's Congress (NPC), it received nearly 20,000 petitioners last year, one-third more than in 2002.

Yao Lifa, a former people's representative in Qianjiang City in Central China's Hubei Province, is one of the growing number of petitioners coming to Beijing for NPC intervention.

He argued that there was something unfair about the procedure of the election of people's deputies in his city late last year, which lead to his failure to be elected.

Yao asked the NPC to launch a special investigation into the election. However, the NPC was not available for comment yesterday.

Zhou Zhanshun, head of the State Letters and Visits Bureau, the subcabinet-level office responsible for handling complaints, petitions and demonstrations, admitted that civic protests were on the rise.

He said 80 per cent of the complaints are reasonable and 80 per cent of them can be solved by local governments.

It is the first time for the bureau to clearly admit that most of the petitioners have justice on their side.

However, Zhou also showed his concerns that angry citizens were increasingly organized across regions and industries, and the size of demonstrations kept on growing.

Meanwhile, many of the petitioners do not go to the letters and visits offices or other related organs, but instead organize around Zhongnanhai (China's leadership compound) and Tian'anmen Square, which has a severe impact on social stability.

An official with the NPC who wished to remain anonymous said the people's congresses at local level should make more efforts to solicit and resolve the problems that are reported by the petitioners.

(China Daily January 15, 2004)