The urban housing demolition regulation that has been under fire ever since a woman committed suicide in a desperate bid to stop the destruction of her home should have been taken off the books more than two years ago, according to a leading legislator.

Liang Huixing, a member of the Law Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC) - the country's top legislature - said yesterday the tragedy in Southwest China's Sichuan province in which the woman set fire to herself should not have happened because the urban housing demolition regulation the demolition crews were acting under had long since expired.

"As soon as the Property Law took effect in 2007, the (Housing Demolition and Relocation Management) regulation should have lost its efficacy," said Liang.

"All forced home demolitions in the past two years were actually illegal," he insisted.

However, the State Council Legislative Affairs Office, the organ that issued the existing regulation, yesterday insisted that the rule, which allows local governments to evict people from their homes and demolish them if the land is needed for other projects, was still in effect.

In China, the NPC drafts laws while the State Council Legislative Affairs Office makes administrative regulations.

Laws have more legal weight than regulations.

The escalating dispute followed an open letter from five professors at Peking University, who wrote to the NPC on Monday.

The scholars suggested the legislature should get the State Council Legislative Affairs Office to revise or abolish the regulation.

They said it was a breach of the country's Constitution and Property Law.

According to the nation's Constitution and Property Law, a citizen's private property is inviolable - governments should only be able to confiscate someone's home for public welfare construction - and compensation must be paid before relocation.