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More than 200 Fuzhou residents are to put China's judicial independence to the test this week.

 They will challenge the legality of an official attempt to remove them from the site of a multi-million-yuan government property development.

 The case, filed by 83 families in the provincial capital of Fujian province, is one of only a few civil prosecutions brought against the authorities since the Administrative Litigation Bill was introduced in October 1990.

 The residents accuse Fuzhou's Administration of Real Estate of unlawful removal in ordering them to make way for the 2.15 million-square-foot construction.

 The case will be heard in the Intermediate People's Court in Fuzhou for the second time on Friday. The lawsuit was rejected by the same court in January. It was only listed after the residents appealed to the provincial Higher People's Court.

 Lawyer Wang Xin said the resettlement was illegal and residents insisted the local government was unable to approve such a project without recourse to higher authorities.

 The controversy began in November last year when the Fuzhou Real Estate Development Company announced its plan to build Wushan Square, the biggest commercial estate in Fuzhou. About 1,500 families had to be resettled.

 However, the residents argued the project had yet to be approved by the State Planning Commission as required by a State Council circular covering strict control over the development of luxury buildings in 1995.

 More than 100 families sued the municipal Government and the Administration of Real Estate, alleging they had committed administrative mistakes.

 One of the plaintiffs, Liu Qin, 53, said: 'How could they force us to move from the central city to an uninhabited area and ask us to pay tens of thousands of yuan for a so-called new, but broken, house there?'  On April 15, three housewives, aged between 50 and 60, were knocked unconscious when anti-terrorist officers tried to break up a sit-in protest by more than 100 residents outside the provincial government office, said Ms Liu.

 Ms Liu and her neighbours are considering taking the case against the Fuzhou Government to the Higher People's Court in Beijing.

 Wang Sumin, of the Fuzhou Government Information Office, said the 1995 circular on controlling luxury buildings should not be applied to the Wushan project since it was a re-development of an old district.

 Administration of Real Estate chief Yang Genping was unavailable for comment.



Families back to court in homes fight