At China Law & Policy, Elizabeth Lynch reviews Zhao Liang’s 2009 documentary Petition (上访), which explores China’s vast petitioning system.
In Petition: The Court of Complaints, director Zhao Liang (pronounced Zhwow Le-ang) takes on a huge and important subject – the Chinese petitioning system. While the documentary fails to produce a cohesive story, it does successfully portray vignettes of a society very much in turmoil and tells the story of the many people left behind by China’s progress.
In China, the petition system is a way for individuals to lodge complaints against corrupt government officials or corrupt governmental process to higher authorities. Also known as “Letters and Visits” (from the Chinese xinfang and shangfang), it’s a form of extrajudicial action that can trace its origins to imperial days. If an individual believes that a judicial case was decided not in accordance to law or local government officials illegally violated his rights, he can complain to officials in a higher level of government to hear his case, re-decide it and punish the lower level officials. In some ways, every country has a similar process – if you don’t like the way a government official in New York City is treating you, you can complain to your city council member or write a letter to the mayor. But what makes the petitioning system different in China is the fact that it is a formal process. Every level and office in the Chinese government has a bureau of “Letters and Visits.”
