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Judges from the Second Circuit Court of China's Supreme People's Court take their oaths of office. The court was established on Jan 31 in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province. The new circuit courts are part of a series of reforms designed to better deal with the workloads of courts across the country. Mu Ying / China Daily

AS EARLY AS February 2009, the local court of Tianxin in Changsha, capital of Central China's Hunan province, ruled that the Wujialing sub-district office should pay its debt of 1.7 million yuan ($246,484) plus a late payment penalty to a technological company. However, the latter did not implement the ruling until the court published the incident on its official micro blog account. Gmw.cn comments:

The judiciary has the final say and there is no reason for the government to flout its ruling. However, the Wujialing sub-district office of the municipal government failed to repay its debt until eight years after the local court handed down its ruling in the case. That's a serious violation of the law.

Instead of behaving itself, this sub-district office and its leaders defied the law and the ruling of the local court by doing nothing to fulfill its obligation to repay a debt.

What is strange though, is the fact that the local court could not do anything with the sub-district office after it had blatantly flouted its ruling. It is obvious that power is above the law as far as this particular case is concerned.

Fortunately, the Wujialing sub-district office corrected its wrongdoings by belatedly repaying the debt. However, that should still be a lesson. How can such thing be prevented from happening again? How should a local government be made to respect the rulings of a local court?

In the first place, a local court should be granted more power, especially the power to enforce the law. Only when a court has such power will there be no need for higher level government to intervene in cases like the one mentioned above. In addition, Party disciplinary agencies at various levels should take harsher measures to punish the officials who violate Party discipline and law. If any case like Wujialing's happens again, the leading local official involved should be given a penalty, instead of just being ordered to repay the debt.

It requires the efforts of the whole society to improve rule of law, and we hope local governments will do their part.