State Councilor Yang Jing emphasized government departments should guarantee the full implementation of petition reform, during a national meeting for officials in charge of handling public letters and calls, held on July 19.

New measures and breakthroughs in petition reform are required to better protect people’s lawful interests, he said.

Petitioning, also known as letters and calls, is the administrative system for hearing public complaints and grievances. People who are not satisfied with government decisions can request reexamination of their matters.

With the petition work still being a complex and arduous task, Yang said that related departments should speed up petition reform, make more efforts to solve unsettled conflicts and explore an efficient long-term system from past experiences.

He also demanded an improved responsibility system and a strengthened legal system during the implementation of the petition reform.