TIANJIN, June 13 (Xinhua) -- In the downtown area of Tianjin municipality in north China, a densely populated community named Xidi was once notorious for the harsh clashes between its residents and the property management company.
He Li, a community worker, recalled how residents used to stream into her office almost every morning to complain about persistent problems in their living area, such as elevator breakdown, falling objects and potholed roads.
"Over time, more and more of them refused to pay the property management fees, which made things even worse," she told Xinhua.
"At one time, over 1,200 households out of the 1,500-some total refused to pay. In 2019 alone, 400 lawsuits over such disputes were filed," she said.
When handling these lawsuits, the court of Heping District, where the community is located, decided to take the initiative to resolve cases via pre-litigation, echoing a nationwide endeavor to carry forward the "Fengqiao Experience" for resolving social disputes at the community level.
Fengqiao, a township in east China's Zhejiang Province, is known for its community-level social governance in the 1960s.
Instead of sitting on the bench, judges of the Tianjin court walked into the Xidi community, talked to residents to gain comprehensive knowledge about the disputes -- the reasons behind it and the difficulties in settling them.
Targeted suggestions for improvement were raised, and the local government helped materialize them.
A new company was brought in and solved the long-standing issues. Last year, the number of lawsuits filed dropped to around a dozen and more residents resumed paying property management fees.
Building on its success, the court decided to expand the approach to more communities and other issues. It also joined local departments like the government office, police station, women's federation and dispute resolution center as well as professional mediation organizations to set up an office offering residents more diversified options.
Fan Di, a young judge of the court, showed reporters a QR code. "Local residents can scan this code, make appointments and the judges will visit them to help resolve disputes," she said.
In the past year, similar judicial approaches have been expanded to 64 communities across the district, reducing the rate of lawsuits filed among every 10,000 residents in the area by 22 percent year on year, court figures showed.
Zhao Wenyan, president of the court, said their aim is to resolve disputes in a manner with the best effect and yet at the lowest judicial cost.
In 2023, Chinese courts resolved 12.04 million cases through pre-litigation mediation, which accounted for 40.3 percent of all cases filed in the year, according to the Supreme People's Court (SPC).
Courts across China have also enhanced coordination with "people's mediators, namely members of people's mediation committees as well as individuals appointed by the committees as full or part-time mediators. ■
