Rule Of Law In China: Progress And Problems. Lin Li
Congress of the CPC pointed out: We must uphold the organic unity of the Party’s leadership, the people being masters of the country, and governing the country according to law. We must set the people being masters of the country as our basis, and aim at expanding the vitality of the Party and our country and mobilizing the enthusiasm of the people to expand socialist democracy, speed up the building of a socialist country governed by the rule of law, and develop a socialist political civilization. The Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPC on Certain Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Advancing the Law-Based Governance of China, adopted by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, put forward the following: The Party must lead legislation, ensure law enforcement, support the administration of justice, and take the way of observing the law; integrate the basic policy of law-based governance and the basic practice of law-based exercise of state power; not only exercise overall leadership but also coordinate everyone’s efforts so as to ensure that people’s congresses, governments, committees of the CPPCC, courts, and procuratorates all perform their duties and carry out their work in accordance with the law and regulations; ensure that it not only leads the people in enacting and enforcing the Constitution and the laws but also operates within the confines of the Constitution and the laws itself; and be adept at helping its propositions become the will of the country through statuary procedures, guiding the candidates it backs to become leaders of organs of state power through these procedures, exercising leadership over state and society through these organs, and using the principle of democratic centralism to safeguard the authority of the Central Committee and uphold the unity of the whole Party and the entire country.
1Lou Bangyan. (1955). Basic knowledge of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (p. 32). Beijing: New Knowledge Press.
2For example, Urban Residents Organization Ordinance, Registration regulations, Model Regulations of Agricultural Production Cooperatives, Arrest and Detention Regulations, Security Management and Punishment Regulations and etc.
3Deng Xiaoping. (1994). Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts and Unite as One to Look into the Future. In Selected Works of Dang Xiaoping (Volume II) (pp. 146–147). Beijing: People’s Publishing House.
4Wu Daying et al. (1984). Issues of Socialist Legislation in China Socialism (p. 64). Beijing: Qunzhong Publishing House.
5Deng Xiaoping. (1994). Democracy and Legal System Both Can Not Be Weakened. In The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (Volume II) (p. 189). Beijing: People’s Publishing House.
6Judicial Work in Contemporary China (Volume I) (p. 155). Beijing: Contemporary China Publishing House.
7Judicial Work in Contemporary China (Volume I) (p. 155). Beijing: Contemporary China Publishing House.
8Judicial and Administrative Work in Contemporary China (p. 57). Beijing: Contemporary China Publishing House.
9Han Yanlong. (1998). General History of the Legal System of the People’s Republic of China (Volume 2) (pp. 794–795). Beijing: The CPC Central Committee Party School Press.
10China Law Society. (1987). Law Yearbook of China (p. 522). Beijing: Law Press of China.
11Chen Pixian. (1985). Reports of the Standing Committee of the Sixth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China.
12Peng Chong. (1993). Report of the Standing Committee of the Eighth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China.
13The Party Literature Research Office of the Central Committee of the CPC. (1998). The Chronicle of Deng Xiaoping Thought (p. 122). Beijing: CPC Central Committee Press.
14Information Office of the State Council. (2008). White Paper on Building China’s Rule of Law.
15According to the latest statistics, as of February 2017, China has enacted 257 effective laws, more than 750 administrative regulations, over 10,100 local laws and regulations, over 2,700 departmental rules and regulations, and about 9,100 local government regulations. The Supreme Court and the highest Procuratorate have promulgated more than 3,000 judicial interpretations and documents functioning as judicial interpretations.
Chapter 2
The Background and Major Tasks of Comprehensively Advancing the Law-Based Governance of China
“In comprehensively advancing the law-based governance of the country, we must implement the guiding principles of the 18th National Congress and the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee; hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics; take as our guide Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development; and thoroughly implement the guiding principles from major speeches by Xi Jinping. We must remain committed to integrating leadership by the Party, the position of the people as masters of the country; keep resolutely to the path of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics; remain dedicated to upholding the authority of the Constitution and other laws; protect the rights and interests of the people, social equity and justice, and national security and stability in accordance with the law; and thus, through the rule of law, provide a powerful guarantee for achieving the Two Centenary Goals and realizing the Chinese Dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
The overall objective of our efforts to comprehensively advance the law-based governance of the country is to develop a socialist rule-of-law system with Chinese characteristics and a socialist rule-of-law country. This means that under the CPC’s leadership, we need to uphold socialism with Chinese characteristics; put into practices the theory of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics; form a complete system of laws, a highly effective system to put into effect the rule of law, a stringent system to oversee the rule of law being put into effect, and a robust system to guarantee the rule of law; put in place a well-defined system of Party regulations; make coordinated efforts to simultaneously develop the law-based governance of the country, the law-based exercise of state power, and the law-based administration of government; adopt a holistic approach to the development of a rule-of-law country, a rule-of-law government, and a rule-of-law society; ensure that a well-conceived approach is taken to legislation, that law is enforced strictly, that justice is administered impartially, and that the law is observed by everyone; and modernize our country’s governance system and capacity for governance”.
—Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Certain Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Advancing the Law-Based Governance of China, adopted by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee.
1.The Historical Development from “Law-Based Governance of the Country” to “Comprehensively Advancing Law-Based Governance of the Country”
The Resolution passed by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee articulates for the first time the CPC’s action program of law-based exercise of state power comprehensively and systematically in the form of the Party’s documents. The Resolution centers on the theme of comprehensively advancing law-based governance of the country and also proposes in detail the guiding thought, overall objective, basic principles, and specific tasks in fulfilling the theme. It establishes in a scientific way a complete theory system of comprehensively advancing law-based governance of the country, puts forward the requirements for the institutional development of the socialist rule-of-law system with Chinese characteristics, and ushers in a new era of rule-of-law construction in China.
The formation of the theory system and action plan of comprehensively promoting law-based governance of the country by the ruling party has gone through a comparatively long period of historical understanding and development and can obviously be divided into two stages: The first stage recognizes the position and importance of legal construction in developing a modernized socialism; the second stage experiences a shift