[2] It is not easy for plaintiffs in administrative litigation to win, and even harder to achieve a substantive victory. Zhiming Law Firm has won another case at the foot of the Imperial City. Recently, a judgment was received in an administrative litigation case handled by our firm’s lawyer Li Zhiyong, ruling against two defendants: a district government in Beijing and a district urban management bureau in Beijing. The decision on the demolition order was revoked! Our client’s (the plaintiff’s) two properties in the core area of Beijing (near the Forbidden City within the Second Ring Road) were preserved.

[3] Old Beijing Hutong (Image source: Internet)
 

[4] Beijing property owner suddenly receives a "Demolition Order"

[5] Whether historically self-built houses are illegal construction

[6] A Beijing resident, Zhou, owns two self-built houses in a hutong within the core area of Beijing’s Second Ring Road. One was built by Zhou’s father-in-law in the 1950s, and the other was built by Zhou and her spouse in the 1990s. Both buildings have stood for many years without any administrative agency investigating them as illegal construction. Additionally, the Beijing courts and the Beijing Housing and Land Administration Bureau issued two red rental housing iron plates to Zhao (Zhou’s deceased husband). The plates bear the rental housing address, owner’s name, serial number, approved number of rooms, and approved number of occupants, along with the names of the Beijing courts and the Beijing Housing and Land Administration Bureau. One plate, numbered Jing-Mou-1XX, also includes the words "self-built." These two iron plates fully demonstrate that the Beijing courts and the Beijing Housing and Land Administration Bureau recognized the legality of these two self-built houses and registered and issued plates for approval. However, in April 2018, a district urban management bureau in Beijing delivered a "Demolition Order" to Zhou, claiming that the two self-built houses were illegal construction and must be demolished. Zhou could not accept this capricious decision by the administrative agency that infringed on her interests. She first applied for administrative reconsideration to a district government in Beijing, requesting the revocation of the "Demolition Order" from the district urban management bureau. Unsurprisingly, the district government in Beijing issued a decision upholding the administrative action. Zhou was then forced to file a lawsuit with a district people’s court.

The district government's administrative reconsideration upheld the decision to forcibly demolish.

An old Beijing homeowner hired a renowned lawyer to protect rights in court.

Zhou, impressed by reputation, sought out lawyer Li Zhiyong from Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm and entrusted him as his agent in the first-instance trial. After reviewing the case in detail, Lawyer Li Zhiyong believed that the two self-built houses of his client's family did not violate the laws, regulations, or policies in effect at the time. His client and her family of six or seven, including her in-laws, had been "crammed" into a dwelling of just over 40 square meters in the hutong, and the overcrowding was unimaginable. The client's family was forced to build self-constructed houses in the hutong to meet their living needs. The act of building these houses was entirely reasonable, as they were structures the people had to erect out of necessity for survival. Moreover, both buildings had previously received rental iron plates issued by a Beijing-level administrative department, recognizing their legality. Based on the principle of reliance protection, administrative agencies must honor their commitments, not arbitrarily change them, and not act inconsistently. Since the legality and reasonableness of the two self-built houses in question were acknowledged or tacitly accepted at the time, it should not now be permissible to use subsequent laws and regulations to penalize the client's so-called illegal construction from decades ago. Furthermore, if the defendant (a certain urban management bureau in a Beijing district) was punishing an illegal act by the client, it also faced issues of statute of limitations. Additionally, similar buildings near the structures in question were not investigated by the defendant on the grounds of being historical issues, which was a clear case of unequal enforcement of the law. Unequal enforcement is itself illegal. The defendant intended to simply and roughly demolish the houses on which the client's family relied for living, without offering any compensation. Such a crude and excessive administrative act clearly caused significant harm to the legitimate interests of the administrative counterpart. Moreover, the other defendant in this case, the People's Government of a certain Beijing district, failed to lawfully correct the illegal and improper specific administrative act of the urban management bureau, and its administrative reconsideration decision should be revoked according to law. Lawyer Li Zhiyong collected sufficient evidence from the plaintiff Zhou and submitted it to the court.

The courtroom was a fierce battle of words, with sharp confrontations and tense atmosphere.

The Zhiming lawyer strongly argued that the defendant's factual determination was erroneous and the evidence was unclear.

In court, Lawyer Li Zhiyong elaborated from legal, rational, and emotional perspectives on the illegality, irrationality, and inhumanity of the "Decision on Demolition within a Time Limit" in this case, which should be revoked according to law. The defendant, the People's Government of a certain Beijing district, neglected its supervisory duties, and the "Administrative Reconsideration Decision" should also be revoked. Ultimately, the People's Court of a certain Beijing district ruled that the defendant, the urban management bureau, had unclear factual determination and insufficient evidence, and thus revoked its "Decision on Demolition within a Time Limit," along with the "Administrative Reconsideration Decision" of the People's Government of a certain Beijing district.

Although the first-instance judgment did not completely deny the legality of the defendant's actions, it was still the maximum protection of the plaintiff's interests that the judge could render under the current administrative litigation environment.