Yang Zhizhu and his second child

By Huang Jingjing

A Beijing law professor, who was fined for contravening the one-child policy by having a second child, is suing local family planning authorities in an attempt to promote the need to have the policy revised, if not scrapped altogether.

Yang Zhizhu, 44, an assistant professor at China Youth University for Political Sciences, was suspended from his teaching position in April 2010 after it was discovered his wife had given birth to a second child in December 2009.

In September, the Haidian District population and family planning commission fined him 240,642 yuan ($36,300) for "illegally having a second child."

Consequently, his second child is unable to obtain a hukou (household registration).

"Without a hukou, she is not entitled to go to school, find a job or get married," Yang claimed.

Deciding to fight against the ruling, Yang countered by suing the commission on December 1, with the trial opening Tuesday at a local court in Haidian.

"I don't deserve such a harsh punishment. I do not think I will win the lawsuit, but I want my case to raise public awareness, and hope to eventually prompt legislators to change or revoke birth-control regulations. There are a lot of loopholes," Yang, insisted, telling the Global Times Thursday.

However, Yang himself had ruled out the possibility the family-planning policy could be cancelled as "it goes against China's conditions."

A possible solution for the current contradiction is to loosen the rein on how many babies a family can have, he said.

The national family planning policy varies in places. Residents in rural and remote areas may have a second child if the first child is a daughter.

In Beijing, a second child is acceptable if both parents are single children themselves or if the first child is born disabled.

 Yang has two siblings and his wife was also born into a big family with a brother and two sisters, meaning that he was not entitled to have more than one child.

One-child policy violators face fines that are based on net income or disposable income per capita.

According to Beijing measures for the collection of social maintenance fees, which took effect in December 2002, an urban family illegally having a second child must pay from three to ten times the average disposable income per capita in the year the child was born.

Figures released in January 2010 showed that the average yearly disposable income per capita for Beijing residents was 26,738 yuan in 2009. In consequence, the fine levied on Yang is nine times this figure.

Yang, whose wife is jobless, said that he earned about 5,000 yuan a month in his teaching position, and now only makes 81 yuan a month once all his overhead costs have been removed from his monthly salary of 600 yuan.

"The size of the fine is unreasonable because it does not take into consideration the specific condition of Yang's circumstances," Zhou Zhe, Yang's defense lawyer, told the Global Times.

"China's Population and Family Planning Law encourages a couple to have one child but does not specify that having one child is mandatory," Yang argued.

Liang Zhongtang, a demographer at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times, "I'm not encouraging that more babies should be born. But I oppose governmental restrictions on the grounds of 'seeking economic and social development through curbing population.'"

However, Zhai Zhenwu, a standing vice president of the China Population Association, told the Global Times that the penalty was based on law.

"Since the law is being enforced, you have to abide by it. Any discontent or suggestions for the prevailing regulations and laws should be proposed to the legislation bodies for amendment," Zhai said.

Mo Yuchuan, professor of administrative law with Renmin University of China, told the Global Times that since the regulation governing social maintenance fees was stipulated by the legislative body, it would be very hard to overturn it in court.

Zhou, Yang's lawyer, argued that the significance of the case does not depend on whether Yang can win the case or not, but whether it can help "rationalize China's birth control regulations."

Song Shengxia and Zhu Shanshan contributed to this story