China's Supreme People's Court took a notable step to defend the rights of farmers on a land contract Friday, by publishing a judicial explanation on the issue.
  
Currently, violations of farmers' rights on land contracts and relevant laws and policies were widely reported, and in some areas, the violations have turned into a factor causing social instability, said Huang Songyou, vice president of the supreme court, at a press conference.
  
It is aimed to promote the public's sense of respecting and protecting farmers' rights, Huang said.
  
According to official reports, last year, 60-70 percent of complaints governments at different levels received from farmers involved disputes on land contracts. Violent confrontations occurred in some provinces.
  
Now, local courts should handle suits on this kind of disputes, if the suitors have contracted the land and their rights have been infringed upon, said Huang.
  
He criticized some local governments who have violated farmers' rights on land contracts in the name of implementing the policies of reclaiming cultivated land to plant trees or of turning small scale farming into a larger projects.
  
Many farmers who have returned home from cities thanks to the government's new policy to boost agriculture are now demanding to take back their farmland from the leaser. This has also aroused some land-related disputes.
  
Farmers have acquired a kind of property rights through signing of land contracts, and thus, the violation of their contract rights has infringed upon their property rights, says the supreme court document. The court should support farmers to take back land from leasers, it says.
  
The owner of rural land, namely a village committee, in line with law, is not righteous in taking back the contracted land from the contractor, it says. 

(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2005)