It could be a hard choice whether to stick to the principles of a legal code or give in to the authority of a red-head (official) document when the two are in conflict.

Theoretically, the decision should not be difficult to make. But in reality it may not be easy when behind such a document lies the interest of a particular group or even the benefits of people in a particular area.

In fact, one of the important roles of establishing the rule of law is to challenge the authority of such red-head documents. They are at the root of administrative departments at various levels building their authority.

This may explain why the State Council issued a notification recently requiring governments at various levels to clean up their administrative rules including the great number of these documents by October. They have been instructed to abolish those red-head documents that conflict with laws.

Relevant regulations enacted by the State Council in 2001 and 2004 require that all red-head documents of administrative nature must be examined and kept on file by a higher level legal affairs office to make sure they do not conflict with State laws.

Statistics from the legal affairs office of the State Council show that their branches at provincial levels examined some 9,000 such documents from lower level governments in 2006, and more than 500 of them were found to be problematic. If such documents from county level governments are included, the figure will increase many fold.

Some documents can be so ludicrous that they even ban residents without a junior high school diploma from getting a marriage certificate, a work certificate or a driving license with the aim of reducing school dropout rates.

It is not rare for local governments to issue such red-head documents to give the go-ahead to polluting firms, protect monopolies or unfair competition and even to defend the illegal interests of a select group.

The State Council's decision to clean up such documents promotes the rule of law above the will of authorities.

In addition, citizens' increasing awareness of their right to take legal action when their interests are infringed upon by such documents has also put pressure on governments to employ caution in issuing them.

(China Daily April 20, 2007)