WHAT is especially crucial when it comes to implementing the Law on Administrative Licensing is that government departments should cease thinking of themselves as administrators of society, said Zou Rong, an associate professor from the East China University of Politics and Law.

"They ought to bear in mind that they shoulder the responsibility for serving ordinary people," said the professor of administrative law.

Such an idea would have been considered "subversive" to some extent throughout most of China's long history. In the past, the role of a governor was still conceived as something like a parent. Even today, Chinese are familiar with the phrase "parental official".

In ancient China, parents, especially the senior male parent, was the absolute authority in a family.

Naturally, parents were put in charge of every thing in a large family, and handled every thing for their children, with marriage as a vivid example.

Chinese society developed on the basis of the family module, with parental authority being reflected in the status of officials.

With such a social system relying on the rule of emperors and their officials, many people longed to set their foot in politics. A Confucian slogan long popular with Chinese reads: he who excels in study can follow an official career.

Thus, in young men's minds, the natural goal of hard study was to attain to a position in government, thus acquiring parental authority over society.

Less interference

After the foundation of the People's Republic of China, governments stressed that officials were public servants undertaking the responsibility to provide services for the ordinary people, who were the masters of society.

However, in recent years, increasing numbers of scholars and experts poured out their criticism on officials who did not fulfill their role as public servants, because the ancient ideology guiding the exercise of power as an official still prevailed, encouraging bureaucracy and corruption.

"Thus, it is vital for the power of officials to be greatly limited," Zou added.

Describing this so-called "self-revolution of the government", many scholars argued that the law revealed the government was determined to effectively return power to ordinary people, enabling them to make decisions for themselves. However, some have also raised concerns about whether people would manage to make the right choices without government administration to direct them.

"One point which is clear is that those matters relating to public interests do need official intervention," Zou stressed.

Taking people hiring housemaids as an example, he said that a resident could choose a housemaid on his own, without any permission from the government.

"Although there are some cases in which housemaids steal money from the host, can we say it is a very serious problem that some housemaids are thieves?" he said. "It just happens occasionally, and our governments need not involve themselves in such sporadic matters. People can resort to the police and the courts to solve such matters."

According to legal experts, the emergence of such problems should not be attributed to the law, and people ought to be responsible for their own decisions.

"In the past, government permission was required for undertakings in many areas of people's daily lives, yet such problems still arose," he added.

Rule of law

To ensure the law works effectively after its implementation, experts have also advocated the involvement of the people's congresses and courts at all levels.

"People's congresses should fulfill their duty to supervise the work of the government," Zou said.

"Courts should also function as genuine sources of judgment, abiding by the principle of justice and fairness."

Although China's Administrative Procedure Law has been enacted since 1989, ordinary people have continued to complain about the enormous difficulties and intricacies of administrative lawsuits.

"Many administrative cases are really knotty," said an insider from the judicial sector. "Some things are beyond judges as individuals."

Accordingly, in the eyes of scholars, the role of courts has turned out to be pivotal.

The lawmakers are also considering taking a major step towards making China a country ruled by law.

China put forward this goal in its 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1997, and re-affirmed it during the 16th Party Congress in 2002.

The goal won wide applause from legal experts, who pointed out that to carry out administrative work by following laws and regulations constituted the core of this objective.

At the National People's Congress held last March, Premier Wen Jiabao again stressed the importance of the rule of law.

"Governments at all levels must exercise their power and perform their duties within the scope of their authority defined by law and in accordance with legal procedures," he said in his government report.

"We need to increase oversight of administrative law enforcement to make it stricter, fairer and more courteous."

He also mentioned that governments at all levels must strictly abide by the Administrative Permission Law, treating it as an important piece of legislation regulating government acts.

It was believed that the emphasis on laws in recent years clearly demonstrated the efforts society was making to establish the supreme authority of law over persons and organizations.

Many scholars had also stressed that governments following laws were of much more benefit to ordinary people.

Wang Liming, a law professor from the Renmin University of China, said in his essay focusing on the rule of law that to carry out administration within the scope of laws, government power had to be restrained.

"Governments' violations are especially devastating to the rule of law," he said. "No other social organization or institution is as powerful as the government, which is always the strongest force in society. The strongest elements in society are always the ones most prone to despise the laws."