A different look at demolitions

Jiang Ming'an and four other scholars from Peking University's Law School submitted a suggestion to the National People's Congress at the end of 2009 to review the Regulation on the Dismantlement of Urban Houses. Later, the Legal Affairs Office of the State Council, China's Cabinet, released a draft to solicit public opinion on the regulation on expropriation of houses on State-owned land and related compensation.

After waiting for more than half a year, Jiang and the other scholars told the media that they were unhappy with the stagnation of the regulation's revision process. The public got the second draft for comment only at the end of 2010. That the second draft took a year to be completed, unprecedented in China, shows the strong resistance the revision faces.

As professors of law, Jiang and his colleagues saw their suggestion as a way of doing "something" for people like Tang Fuzhen, who committed self-immolation in protest against the forcible demolition of her house in 2009.