william's blog11:49 am April 15 2009 Joel Martinsen from Danwei has translated two articles that shed new light on the problems in the petitioning system. The first, written by a frustrated official working in a small town petitioning bureau, shows the obscene amount of time and money that local petitioning officials spend in keeping tracking of petitioners locally and in “retrieving” petitioners who travel to higher level petitioning offices to reflect their problems. The petitioning officials suppress these petitioners rather than solving their problems because, under the current “zero tolerance policy” system, a blemish on their record could permanently tarnish their careers. The second article, written by highly respected CASS researcher Yu Jianrong, shifts the focus back towards seeing things from the petitioners’ point of view, and shows how the “zero tolerance policy” is not conducive towards solving the petitioners’ issues and providing justice, nor towards enhancing judicial authority.