The Supreme People's Court holds a public hearing over the environmental public interest case on the afternoon of Jan 21, 2016. [Photo provided by the Supreme People's Court]

A 70-year-old?woman sued the local government of Huayin city, northern China's Shaanxi province, for wrongly registering her property under the name of her son. The local government neither sent a representative to court, nor executed the court's ruling which went against it. Why not introduce a compulsory enforcement system against such powerful institutions, asks jschina.com.cn:

There is a growing awareness among ordinary residents that they can use the courts to defend their rights and interests. The judge in this case said it was just one of about 200 against local governments within the province in their courts for the past two years. That's a positive trend, because only when people seek solutions to disputes via the courts, will rule of law be possible.

However, local governments seem to be lagging far behind. The local government in Huayin has demonstrated the contempt local governments tend to show court rulings that go against them. It was only after the national media picked up the story that it promised to implement the ruling.

Many people say leading local government officials need to change their mindsets and give up old thinking that local governments are sacred and inviolable.

They are right. But more importantly, the case reveals the lack of a means of enforcing court rulings when local governments refuse to abide by them. A mandatory execution mechanism is necessary, so that local governments cannot simply ignore court judgments that go against them. When a government refuses to execute a court ruling, a court should also be able to punish government officials if they do not abide by its ruling.

The Huayin incident has already ruined the credit of the local government because it has treated the law as simply a worthless scrap of paper. To uphold the rule of law, local governments must be made to execute court rulings that go against them, because a court that has no authority will not be trusted by ordinary people.