Shenzhen, a special economic zone in South China's Guangdong Province, issued a rule early this month to force government officials to appear in court in certain kinds of administrative cases.

The rule aims to ensure that officials can no longer avoid appearing in administrative cases without specific reasons.

Administrative litigation centres on whether or not a specific administrative act is legitimate under China's Administrative Procedure Law.

Since the enactment of the Administrative Litigation Law 13 years ago, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of administrative cases.

However, in practice, the heads of administrative bodies being sued are seldom seen in court. Only about 0.1 per cent of administrative directors who are charged have eventually appeared in court.

Considering a court appearance as humiliating and not fitting in with their official status, some leading officials of administrative bodies tend to be reluctant to appear in court or even hostile to the idea.

This may partly explain why administrative leaders seldom defend administrative litigation cases in court in person.

The frequent absence in court of administrative heads in administrative cases has not only eroded the government's credibility but also the authority of the law.

From the perspective of legal principles, as the legal representative of an administrative body, the head or director should turn up in court. However, the previous unwritten requirements were unclear and non-binding and gave those officials the very excuse they needed to appearing in as defendants. This resulted in large numbers of trials in administrative cases having to be abandoned.

Without a precise and definite legal interpretation defining the conditions under which administrative heads have to appear in court, officials could not be put under scrutiny in such cases and held accountable within a legal framework. This seriously tarnished the fairness of the law and affected the efficiency with which the law was implemented.

It is in this respect that Shenzhen's new rule is of great significance.

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