Legal Challenges to the Beijing Car Restriction Policy: Property Rights, Open Government Information, and the Rule of Law
Traffic congestion in Beijing
The Beijing car restriction policy has been put into effect for two weeks. Good impacts have been shown on relieving the city’s heavy road transportation and restricting the vehicle emissions, according to one report of today’s Xinhua News. Although the car restriction policy won support from both public transportation riders and private car drivers, differences still exist between the two groups. A recent People’s Daily article discussed the legal challenge towards Beijing’s new car restriction policy. Does it violate the property rights of the car owners? Lawyers, law professors, scholars on economics and public policy were interviewed about their reading of the relationship between private property right and public policy. Some of them think the policy restricts car owners’ use of their property and surely constitutes infringement. Some others, however, doubt the restriction on using the road, which is public property, equals to restriction of using the car, the private property, though the policy does have some influence over the way to make full use of the private property. The experts seem to be more agreeable to the opinion that the public’s concerns should be taken into account and fair process should be followed to balance the private rights and public power during policy making.
People’s Editorial (人民视屏) published a more critical article which explicitly correlates the car policy with open government information and public participation. The article concludes that the government should not make public policy arbitrarily based solely on the willingness of several officials. It must represent the opinion of majority of the public and the process shall be open and transparent. Public policy made without releasing information to the public and getting them participated is unable to convince the public even it is intended to achieve good goals.”
Another article on MSN China also criticized the car policy and even expanded the discussion to relationship between administrative power and rule of law in a cynical tone. Environmental policy is also talked about in this article. An administrative policy of Kunming, Yunnan announcing that the measures towards polluting enterprises should be “education as the main form with punishment as the supplement” was criticized as abolishing set punishment measures in environmental law by mere administrative policy. The Regulation of Administrative Procedure of Hunan was also cited to show contrast but imply at the same time some doubts towards implementation and enforcement of this procedure.
Online surveys of people’s attitude towards the car restriction policy portray a remarkable shift. In comparison with the supporting rate of 68% in a similar survey right after the Olympic Games, the case is now reversed after the policy is put into action. In a poll of 2,9000 online survey participators, nearly 1,8000 of them are against the policy, which accounts more than 61% of opposing rate. The main reason they hold is lack of fair process.
At the same time, according to a China News report, the air pollution in Beijing seems to returning to pre-Olympic conditions. The one-week-long National Holiday saw three days in a row with very visible pollution. While people are questioning the lawfulness of the car restriction policy, complaints are also directed at reopened factories and construction sites, as well as the cars coming back to the streets after the cease of temporary environmental measures during the Olympic Games.
Comments
3 Responses to “Legal Challenges to the Beijing Car Restriction Policy: Property Rights, Open Government Information, and the Rule of Law”
Leave a Reply
Nice post!
China’s Environmental Data Disclosure and the Top 10 Least and Most Polluted Cities…
See our bilingual (English and Chinese) blog dedicated to discussion of China’s environmental law, policy and public participation at http://www.greenlaw.org.cn/enblog. Last week was Spring Festival in China. Despite the economic downturn,…
[...] poor fuel quality) are probably two of the most intractable issues for Beijing. The city has made some moves on transportation, but the regional issues will require serious regulatory innovation and devotion of more resources [...]