Village regulations and folk conventions are an important means through which villagers in Chinese administrative or natural villages exercise the right to self-governance granted by the Constitution. Article 27, Clause 2 of the the Organic Law of the Villagers Committees(2018 version) establishes two prohibitive legal rules: the “Non-Contradiction Rule” and the “Non-Infringement Rule” for the content of village regulations and folk conventions. Clause 3 further stipulates that village regulations and folk conventions violating these prohibitive rules should be rectified by the people's governments of townships, ethnic townships, and towns. These clauses constitute the substantive rules for reviewing village regulations and folk conventions. However, the absence of procedural rules makes it difficult for these substantive rules to effectively function through legal procedures. In practice, although the People's Courts have the authority to review the legality of the content of village regulations and folk conventions, it is not their statutory duty to review whether village regulations and folk conventions violate prohibitive rules. Consequently, the courts do not accept related civil disputes and administrative controversies. This not only undermines the efficacy of the village regulations and folk conventions formation mechanism but also impairs the constitutional implementation of villagers' self-governance. Therefore, this paper focuses on the practical issues and challenges of village regulations and folk conventions review in rural China, exploring the background, rationale, and construction of a dual-track review system for village regulations and folk conventions compliance. It argues for the necessity of establishing a more systematic village regulations and folk conventions legality review mechanism, incorporating both administrative and judicial reviews. More specifically, at the filing stage, the people's governments of counties (districts), townships, ethnic townships, and towns should conduct administrative reviews to annul, alter, or mandate the redrafting of village regulations and folk conventions that violate prohibitive rules. At the litigation stage, the People's Courts should conduct judicial reviews, disregarding village regulations and folk conventions content that violates prohibitive rules, and issue judicial recommendations to the relevant people's governments for lawful handling.
