Assisting grassroots governance, People's Daily pays attention to the "three linkage" mechanism in Shanghai: Gathering resources from all parties, residents | elevators | mechanism
Core Reading
Urban communities are densely populated and have diverse demands. In order to optimize grassroots governance, Shanghai is exploring the launch of the "three linkage" mechanism of police stations, judicial offices, and law firms, integrating the forces of public security officers, mediators, and lawyers, listening to the demands of the masses, providing legal services, and striving to resolve conflicts and disputes in their early stages.
"The neighboring building called the police again, saying that residents on the first floor were lying on the ground to stop construction."
Upon hearing the news, the leader of the building, Xu Minghuai, put aside his current affairs and hurried to the scene.
The hydroelectric community where he lives is located in Hongkou District, Shanghai. It was built in the 1980s and has a permanent population of over 5100 people, with nearly half of them being over 60 years old. For high-rise residents, installing elevators has become a necessity. However, since the community started adding elevators in 2021, there have been constant conflicts and disputes among the residents of the buildings involved, and the project of adding elevators to benefit the people has been hindered at one point. How to effectively resolve conflicts and disputes, effectively promote grassroots governance, has become an urgent problem that needs to be solved in all aspects.
Why is the installation of an elevator obstructed?
During the initial solicitation of opinions, everyone had a consensus, but after construction, some residents raised new demands
Speaking of the situation when the first few elevators in the community were installed, Qiu Xiangqin, the Party Secretary of the Water and Electricity Residential Area, waved his hand repeatedly and said, "Almost every elevator is installed, and residents report to the police due to disputes."
When seeking opinions in the early stage, in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Code and other laws and regulations, the proportion of agreed owners must reach the statutory proportion before construction can commence. "If we don't reach the agreed ratio, there's no problem. Conflicts often arise during the construction phase." Qiu Xiangqin told reporters that residents on the first floor of a building believed that noise would interfere with their daily lives, blocked excavators, and prevented them from entering and starting construction; In another building, some residents believe that elevators will affect their own lighting and lie on the ground to block construction; On the first floor of another building, there was an elderly couple who impulsively sat in a wheelchair in front of the construction team.
"The act of preventing construction directly causes conflicts between this group of residents and those who need to increase elevators." Fang Fang, a police officer from the Liangcheng New Village Police Station of the Hongkou Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, said that the police can only persuade and guide them on site to prevent the conflict from escalating. "But if it cannot be resolved from the root cause, such situations will happen again and again."
Seeing that the several buildings under construction were not calm, Xu Minghuai was not as enthusiastic at one point: "If the addition of elevators causes disharmony among neighbors, is it worth it?" The 29 buildings in the hydroelectric community that have a demand for elevators were only successfully installed with two elevators by March 2022. How to effectively resolve conflicts among residents has become the key to promoting the project of adding elevators to benefit the people.
Hongkou District has a total area of 23.48 square kilometers and a permanent population of nearly 740000, making it one of the most densely populated urban areas in Shanghai. According to data, from 2020 to 2022, the average number of dispute police cases in Hongkou District exceeded 24000 per year, accounting for about 1/5 of the total police cases. Including conflicts caused by the installation of elevators, conflicts and disputes related to marriage, family, neighborhood relationships, property services in the community, labor compensation outside the community, consumer leasing, and engineering avoidance have gradually become the most common situations faced by police officers in police stations.
"Contradictions and disputes are the starting point of the police situation and the 'barometer' of community security. If some minor conflicts are not resolved, they may escalate and intensify." Liu Guoqing, Deputy District Chief of Hongkou District and Director of Hongkou Public Security Bureau, said that with the enhancement of residents' awareness of the rule of law, it is necessary to innovate methods of mass work, use governance thinking and legal methods, and solve conflicts related to the vital interests of the masses.
In March 2022, the Implementation Opinions on the Comprehensive Promotion of the Mechanism for Resolving Contradictions and Disputes in Hongkou District were issued, exploring the linkage of police stations, judicial offices, and law firms to form a joint force among public security officers, mediators, and lawyers, with legal reasoning, emotional reasoning, and rational reasoning, striving to resolve conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level.
How can different demands be resolved?
Launching the "three linkage" mechanism, involving multiple parties in resolving conflicts and disputes, and guiding residents to express their opinions and suggestions rationally
Since last year, Fang Fang has received reports of conflicts and disputes in the hydroelectric community due to the installation of elevators. She will bring the parties to the "Hongxin Three Institute Linkage" mediation room in the community. Along with her, in addition to the people's mediator Qiu Xiangqin, there was also Zhou Jianjiong, a lawyer from Shanghai Siji Law Firm, who met with the residents.
"Whether something is reasonable or louder than anyone else, it depends on whether it is compliant or illegal." Sitting with residents who are preventing construction, Zhou Jianjiong popularized detailed provisions of the Civil Code and relevant regulations in Shanghai to them. "Since the entire process of adding stairs to this building is legal and compliant, obstructing the construction team from entering the site is definitely unreasonable in law. Even if it causes trouble in court, it will not be supported."
After listening to the interpretation and reasoning, many residents have a book in their minds.
"If you have any specific demands and ideas for elevator installation, you can speak up." Following Zhou Jianjiong's words, Qiu Xiangqin solicited opinions and suggestions from residents.
At this point, many people no longer blindly oppose, but instead put forward their own demands: some are afraid that the transparent glass next to the elevator will affect privacy, some believe that elevator noise will affect rest, and some feel that it is inconvenient to retrieve letters from the mailbox after installing the elevator... "If residents are willing to express their opinions rationally, the resolution of conflicts and disputes will have a foundation," said Fang Fang.
With the "three linkage" mechanism in place, elevator companies, industry committees, and resident autonomous groups continuously participate and form a "special team for adding elevators"; Six elevator installation promotion and consultation meetings were held successively to provide residents with concentrated interpretation of elevator installation policies and beneficial terms, as well as technical consulting services; Visited more than 600 households with objections, collected and summarized the difficulties in installing elevators in each building, and formulated a "one elevator, one plan" to fully address the needs of residents. For privacy concerns, please install frosted glass; For those who are afraid of noise, install double-layer glass; The elevator company also built accessible passages for buildings equipped with elevators for free
Since last year, Xu Minghuai has clearly felt that the number of residents calling 110 in the community has decreased, and the speed of installing elevators has increased. The residents said that if there are any conflicts, they should find the "three linkage" to handle them and settle them evenly. "We now have confidence that the community will no longer make noise and report to the police due to the installation of elevators." Xu Minghuai and other resident representatives visited each household.
Now, all 29 residents in the hydroelectric community have completed their consultation, 7 buildings have completed elevator installation, 10 buildings are under construction, and 12 buildings are undergoing expert evaluation. After the installation of all elevators in the future, it will benefit more than 1800 residents.
"The installation of elevators is a typical neighboring rights dispute that involves the vital interests of thousands of households. Similarly, there are also complex situations such as decoration, water leakage, and illegal construction. With the" three linkage "mechanism, Zhou Jianjiong has had more and more interactions with residents." We promote legal education in the spear shield mediation, guide residents to express their opinions rationally, express their demands legally, and resolve conflicts properly. "
How to guide "finding ways to deal with problems"?
Adhere to the rule of law thinking, open online legal consultation platforms, and deliver legal services to the public
"Many conflicts and disputes have intensified, not because the people deliberately want to cause trouble, but because legal services are too far away from them, and people don't know where to find 'arguments'. In addition, litigation and other means are costly and time-consuming, and some people give up taking legal channels." Liu Guoqing believes that to fundamentally solve disputes, we still need to adhere to the rule of law thinking and strive to bring the law to the people's side.
In the process of deepening the "three linkage" mechanism, Hongkou District adheres to the coordination of the district committee and the leadership of the district committee's political and legal committee, and maximizes the mobilization of organizations at all levels from the party committee level. At present, 9 conflict and dispute resolution rooms, 8 public legal service workstations, 198 neighborhood committee legal service rooms have been built in the entire district, and 11 law firms have been signed. 230 community police officers, 113 lawyers, and 310 community cadre mediators were organically integrated, and a "three linkage" mechanism of party committee leadership, government responsibility, group assistance, social collaboration, and public participation was formed throughout the region. In civil disputes involving large compensation payments, a green channel for litigation coordination has been established to improve the efficiency of enforcement after successful resolution of conflicts.
For the convenience of the public to actively seek legal advice in case of difficulties, Hongkou District has developed a "Three Institute Linkage" mini program, which includes columns such as "Legal Aid", "Mediation Appointment", and "Clue Reporting". If there are legal inquiries, the lawyer will reply within 24 hours; If there are conflicts or disputes that require mediation, you can make an online appointment. Since its launch in April this year, the platform has received over 340 online appointments for dispute resolution and over 200 online legal consultations every month.
The "three linkage" mechanism in Hongkou District is also exploring the extension of dispute resolution work beyond the community walls. Currently, it has penetrated 10 commercial districts, 3 hospitals, 4 construction sites, and 31 schools throughout the district. In the first half of this year, the dispute related police situation in Hongkou District decreased by 40.2% compared to the second half of last year.
