Chinese authorities have handled more than 770,000 cases through means of administrative review in the past decade, government statistics showed Monday.

Administrative agencies have upheld more than 45 percent of the original verdicts, or those in about 350,000 cases, according to statistics released in a meeting jointly held by the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council and the Administrative Law Studies Institute of China Law Society.

Citizens, legal persons and other organizations in China can apply to special agencies to reconsider the acts and verdicts made by administrative agencies if they found they were illegal or improper.

The country has rectified and corrected more than 110,000 improper and illegal administrative acts and settled about 150,000 disputes through reconciliation, according to statistics made public during the meeting, which was held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the implementation of China's Administrative Review Law.

More than 90 percent of the cases were reported at the levels of cities and counties.

The number of administrative review cases in the sector of environmental protection saw a sharp increase in recent years, according to Pan Yue, vice minister of Environmental Protection.

Before 2004, the ministry dealt with one to three administrative review cases annually, while the number soared to 63 in less than ten months this year, which equaled to the combined total before 2007, he said.

More cases were found in areas involving land confiscation, the privatization of enterprises and social security, where citizens usually complain of losses of interests, participants to the meeting have said.

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