Huai ‘an Water Testing Administrative Dispute Relief Project to Solve Difficult and Complicated Administrative Disputes Involving Lawsuits
□ Rule of Law Daily reporter Ding Guofeng Rule of Law Daily correspondent Zhang Limei Ding Dayong
Recently, Jinhu County, Jiangsu Province, after receiving the task of responding to the administrative lawsuit of Huai ‘an Municipal Bureau of Justice on the case of a machinery group co., Ltd. v. a street office in Jinhu County, set up a special class to carry out two rounds of relief. The dispute was properly resolved in less than two weeks, and the machinery group applied to the court to withdraw the lawsuit.
According to the law, there are two ways to solve administrative disputes: reconsideration and litigation. The innovative relief of administrative disputes in Huai ‘an refers to the integration of judicial mediation, people’s mediation, administrative mediation and other work under the leadership of judicial administrative organs, comprehensive coordination, legal settlement of collected and learned administrative disputes, promotion of mutual understanding and reconciliation, and finally substantive settlement of disputes.
"Since the actual operation for three months, these mechanisms have played a positive role in reducing the loss rate of administrative cases, and effectively promoted the standardization level of administrative law enforcement while safeguarding the rights and interests of the parties." Jiang Dongming, director of the Huai ‘an Municipal Bureau of Justice, said in an interview with the reporter of the Rule of Law Daily recently.
Strengthen the construction of three mechanisms and four levels
It is understood that the reason why Huai ‘an City explores the implementation of administrative dispute relief work stems from the previously high administrative failure rate and the contradiction between letters and visits caused by the protracted administrative disputes.
From July, 2020, Huai ‘an Municipal Bureau of Justice began to plan the substantive solution of administrative disputes from the perspective of facilitating the people and optimizing the experience of the rule of law, trying to open up channels for administrative reconsideration, litigation and mediation, and exploring new ways to solve administrative disputes.
At present, there are three channels for administrative disputes: the parties seek legal help, file an administrative reconsideration and file an administrative lawsuit. To this end, Huai ‘an Municipal Bureau of Justice has improved three working mechanisms, namely, implementing an information reporting system for administrative cases represented by lawyers; Set up the pre-procedure for relieving administrative reconsideration cases, and transfer the administrative disputes suitable for relief to the administrative dispute relief center; In the Qingjiangpu District People’s Court, which has centralized jurisdiction over administrative litigation cases of first instance in the whole city, an administrative dispute relief sub-center is set up to analyze and judge the administrative disputes to be filed. If it is suitable for relief, it will be handed over to the municipal administrative dispute relief center.
"We have strengthened systematic construction from four levels: city, relevant departments of the city, county and town (street)." Hu Haiyang, deputy director of the Huai ‘an Municipal Committee’s Office of Governing the City by Law, said that at the municipal level, an administrative dispute resolution center was set up in the municipal public legal service center to direct and dispatch the city’s administrative dispute resolution work. By setting up a sub-center in the Qingjiangpu District People’s Court, administrative disputes involving county-level government departments, towns, streets and municipal units were directly resolved and diverted; Set up workstations in 16 departments where administrative disputes are relatively concentrated, such as the Municipal Public Security Bureau, and participate in case relief in the whole process of the front end of the case. At the county level, through the establishment of administrative dispute relief work contact points in eight counties (districts) under the jurisdiction of the city, administrative disputes involving the county (district) are relieved, and at the same time, active investigations are organized to actively carry out the action of relieving accumulated cases. At the level of towns and streets, administrative disputes are relieved by setting up reception windows in 91 judicial offices, and relying on the "legal network project", an administrative dispute relief mechanism is embedded in each "legal cubicle" to relieve administrative disputes on the spot.
Information Support Promotes Entity Operation
In practice, relying on the "smart justice", Huai ‘an City has set up an administrative dispute resolution module on the "one-code dispute resolution" intelligent adjustment platform, which integrates application for resolution, diversion assignment, video guidance, data statistics, analysis and early warning, and provides scientific and technological support for administrative dispute resolution.
Among them, the Municipal Administrative Dispute Relief Center, together with the Qingjiangpu District Court, will implement the system of linking judges according to the principle of "region+specialty" in six types of disputes: natural resources, social security, public security, market supervision, information disclosure and expropriation and demolition. For disputes that are difficult to relieve and involve deep majors, the person in charge of the sub-center will directly dock. For administrative disputes that cannot be resolved, they shall be promptly introduced into litigation procedures and tried according to law.
"An obvious advantage is that the time for handling disputes is greatly shortened, with an average of about 15 days, while the trial period of administrative disputes is usually two months." Jiang Dongming told reporters that after the substantive operation of the administrative dispute resolution platform in March this year, to a certain extent, it forced the administrative organs to standardize the administrative law enforcement behavior, making it possible to reduce the failure rate of administrative cases.
Zhang, a resident of Jinhu County, found that the food had passed the shelf life after buying it in a supermarket, so he reported it to Jinhu County Market Supervision Bureau, demanding that it be handled and demanding high compensation, and was not filed on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Zhang took the market supervision bureau to court on the grounds that it failed to perform its statutory duties. The administrative relief staff in charge of the case communicated with the original defendant respectively, telling the original defendant that buying fake and claiming high amount of money violated public order and good customs, and informing the defendant that poor supervision might bear the consequences of losing the case. After several rounds of communication, the scheme of "moderate reward and moderate punishment" proposed by the relief personnel was implemented, and the plaintiff withdrew the lawsuit. The case took only seven days from receiving remission to closing.
Series of supporting mechanisms to achieve multiple effects
It is understood that in order to ensure the vitality of this mechanism, the Huai’ an Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Several Provisions on the Respondent of the Responsible Persons of Administrative Organs in Court", giving full play to the exemplary leading and systematic role of the responsible persons in responding to the court. Coordinate the municipal finance to allocate 200,000 yuan of special funds to ensure the efficient operation of the municipal administrative dispute resolution center. At the same time, the relief of administrative disputes will be included in the assessment of the government ruled by law, and the Municipal Office of Governing the City by Law will put forward accountability suggestions to the Supervision Committee of the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection for units and individuals whose relief work is ineffective and leads to the loss of administrative cases or major mass incidents.
In order to practically operate the municipal administrative dispute resolution center and sub-centers, Huai ‘an has set up a 60-person municipal expert database to provide intellectual support for the city’s difficult and complicated administrative dispute resolution and personnel training. Carry out the practice of "one case and one special class" in counties and districts, set up a team of administrative dispute relievers in towns and streets, and work with legal advisers to do a good job in communication and persuasion of plaintiffs.
"Through the implementation of the administrative dispute resolution project, professional resolution forces who understand the rule of law and are good at mediation can intervene in administrative disputes as a third party, and analyze the law between the two parties and resolve disputes substantively, which can not only reduce the occurrence of administrative losing cases, but also standardize law enforcement behavior and improve law enforcement ability for grassroots administrative law enforcement units and grassroots administrative law enforcement personnel." Jiang Dongming said.
Zhao Hongquan, member of the Standing Committee of Huai ‘an Municipal Committee and secretary of the Political and Legal Committee, commented that the administrative dispute resolution system established in Huai ‘an, which is "connected from top to bottom, coordinated from left to right, well-defined and efficient in operation", has initially achieved multiple effects of "lower losing rate of administrative cases, higher satisfaction of the masses, and enhanced administrative awareness of administrative organs according to law".