Zhiming lawyer wins again in administrative litigation on behalf of the plaintiff, preserving the client's two properties near the Forbidden City
[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 The decision on the demolition order was revoked!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.
[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 sought out lawyer Li Zhiyong from Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm by reputation and entrusted him to act as his representative in the first-instance litigation. After reviewing the case in detail, Lawyer Li Zhiyong believed that the two self-built houses owned by our client's (the plaintiff's) family did not violate the laws, regulations, or policies in effect at the time. Our client and her family, including her parents-in-law, totaling six or seven people, had all been "crammed" into a living space of just over forty square meters in the alley, and the degree of overcrowding can well be imagined. The plaintiff's family was forced to build self-constructed houses in the alley to meet the housing needs of the entire household. The act of building these self-constructed houses by our client's family was entirely reasonable. These were structures that the people had to build out of necessity for their livelihood. Moreover, both buildings had previously been granted rental iron plates by a Beijing municipal-level administrative department, recognizing their legality. Under the principle of protection of legitimate reliance, administrative organs should strictly honor their own actions and must not arbitrarily change them or act inconsistently. Since the legality and reasonableness of the two self-built houses in question belonging to our client's family were recognized or tacitly approved at the time, it should not now be the case that post-hoc laws and regulations are used to address the plaintiff's alleged illegal construction activities from decades ago. Furthermore, if the defendant (a certain urban management bureau in a Beijing district) is penalizing an illegal act by our client, there is also an issue of the penalty being time-barred or expired. Additionally, there are similar buildings near the properties in question, yet the defendant, the said urban management bureau, has declined to investigate them on the grounds of being historical issues, which is a clear case of unequal enforcement of the law. Unequal enforcement of the law is itself illegal. The defendant intends to simply and crudely demolish the houses on which our client's family depends for their livelihood, without offering any compensation. Such a rough, simplistic, and excessive administrative action clearly causes significant harm to the legitimate interests of the administrative counterpart. Furthermore, the other defendant in this case, the said district people's government in Beijing, failed to lawfully correct the illegal and improper specific administrative act of the said urban management bureau, and its administrative reconsideration decision should be revoked in accordance with the 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.
