But the current statute not only stipulates that the party that demolishes houses is the party that compensates, but also stipulates that the agreement reached on compensation between the party that demolishes houses and the relocatees is regulated by civil law. The loophole in the definition of legal relations between expropriation and compensation bodies leads to practices that fail to compensate people until their houses are demolished. No surprise then that coercive housing demolition and violent incidents are on the rise.

He said that the revision of the draft involves several issues critical to public acceptance: the definition and demarcation of the public interest, the expropriation approval procedure, the standards of relocation compensation, the conditions and procedures for legal relocation, the dispute resolution mechanism, and relocation compensation for expropriation conducted for commercial purposes.

"As far as I know, the draft of the new statute deviates little from our suggestions and opinions, so I don't think there's fundamental disagreement on basic points and principles," says Shen Kui, vice dean of the Peking University Law School and one of the five professors who appealed to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

The five professors from Peking University hold a unanimous opinion: The government can carry out housing demolition in the public interests only after going through normal procedures, that is, obtaining consent from the relocatees and giving adequate compensation. As for commercial housing development, the developer must first negotiate with the owner of the houses on compensation before the houses are demolished. If their negotiations fail to reach an agreement, the owner has the right to refuse the developer. Only when this article is included in the new statute can the rights and interests of relocatees be protected.

The definition of the public interest remains a complicated issue worldwide. According to Shen Kui, there are two ways to define public interest. One way, a common practice in China, is to review examples in legislation – that is, listing as many concrete incidences as possible. Another mode is to follow the precedent of court verdicts. When the legislation cannot list all the incidences, court precedent can be followed. But at present, China does not practice the system of following precedents set by the court; so listing the incidences in legislation is a more realistic approach to this vexing problem.