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Chapter 1

The Historical Course of and Achievements Made in Developing Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics

“Law-based governance of China is an essential requisite and an important guarantee for upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics, and is a natural requisite for modernizing the country’s governance system and capacity for governance. It has an important bearing on the efforts of the Party to govern and rejuvenate the country, the well-being of the people, and the lasting stability of the Party and the country. It is essential to comprehensively advance the law-based governance of the country in order to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, realize the Chinese Dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, comprehensively deepen the reform, improve and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, and improve the Party’s capacity for and adeptness at governance.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) attaches great importance to developing the rule of law. Over the years, particularly since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC, on the basis of thorough reviews of the successful experiences China has gained and the profound lessons it has learned in developing socialist rule of law, the Party has made it clear that the rule of law must be strengthened and democracy must be institutionalized and codified in order to guarantee people’s democracy. It has made the law-based governance of the country the basic policy by which it leads the people in governing the country and the law-based exercise of state power the basic approach it takes to governing the country. It has been actively developing socialist rule of law, and has secured historic achievements in this respect. Today, a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics has already taken shape, steady progress has been made in building a rule-of-law government, the judicial system has been constantly improved, and the awareness of rule of law has been strengthened throughout society”.

—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 History of Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics

The socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics was originally established on the premise that the old legal system of the Kuomintang government was thoroughly destroyed and on the basis of the Marxist theory of state and law and the reality of China’s New Democratic Revolution. It also drew on the socialist legal system of the Soviet Union. Its development after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 has in general gone through two stages and six periods along with the tortuous development of politics, economy, society, and culture in China.

1.1.Development of the Legal System in the Period from the Founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 to the Adoption of the Reform and Opening-up Policy in 1978

1.1.1. The foundation-laying period of New China’s legal system: from the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 to the promulgation of the Constitution in September 1954. This period, which spans from the founding of the People’s Republic of China in October of 1949 to the promulgation of the Constitution in 1954, lays the foundation for the establishment of China’s socialist legal system. In the early days of New China, the legal system largely played the role of safeguarding the newborn regime, consolidating the proletarian dictatorship and repressing the enemy of the people. In February 1949, before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the CPC Central Committee issued the Directive on Abolishing the Six Codes of the Kuomintang and Determining the Judicial Principles Applied in the Liberated Areas, and declared that “under the regime of the people’s democratic dictatorship dominated by the proletarian alliance of workers and farmers, the Six Codes of the Kuomintang should be abolished, and people’s judicial work could no longer be based on the six codes of the Kuomintang, but should be based on the new laws of the people”. This thus removed obstacles to the complete abolishment of the Kuomintang regime’s pseudo-legal system and Six Codes, as well as its legislation, law enforcement, and judicial system, and laid the cornerstone for the establishment of the legitimacy of the political system of the People’s Republic of China, and the legal system, legislation, law enforcement, and judicial system as well. Zhang Youyu, a renowned Chinese jurist, pointed out: “We abolished the ‘Six Codes’ of the Kuomintang in the early period after liberation. This proves to be an absolutely right decision. The Six Codes represent the Kuomintang’s legal system, so if we did not abolish it, we wouldn’t have established our own revolutionary legal system”.

In September 1949, the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was convened. The session passed the Common Program of the CPPCC, which acted as a temporary constitution, and enacted the Organic Law of the Central People’s Government. Article 17 of the Common Program declared null and void “all the reactionary and oppressive laws and ordinances, and court orders issued by the Kuomintang government, enact laws and ordinances and court orders to protect people, and establish people’s judicial systems”. With these two constitutional laws and other relevant laws, New China embarked on its course of building socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics.

To meet the need for political struggle and legal construction in the early days of New China, a “pluralistic legislative system” was established in the transitional period of political power. Based on this system, the CPPCC drew up the basic law; the Central People’s Government formulated and interpreted laws and decrees of the nation and supervised their implementation; the State Council had the power to promulgate resolutions and orders and examine their implementation, to abolish or amend the resolutions and orders of its subordinate departments, commissions, bureaus, courts, and governments at all levels that were contradictory to laws and decrees of the country and the resolutions and orders of the State Council, and to put forward proposals to the Central People’s Government. According to the General Rules for the Organization of Local Governments, the People’s Government commissions of the greater administrative regions, provinces, municipalities, and counties could formulate decrees, ordinances, and specific regulations, and the autonomous organs of nationalities could formulate specific regulations. This legislative system improved the legislation efficiency and accelerated legislation by central and local organs.

New China’s judicial system was established along with the birth of the new regime. On October 1, 1949, at the first meeting of the Central People’s Government Committee, Shen Junru was appointed as president of the Supreme People’s Court and Luo Ronghuan as the head of the Supreme People’s Procuratorial Bureau. On October 22, the inaugural meeting of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorial Bureau was held, in which Shen Junru and Luo Ronghuan respectively took office. In 1951, the Central People’s Government promulgated the Provisional Regulations on the Organization of the People’s Courts, the Provisional Regulations on the Organization of the Supreme People’s Procuratorial Bureau, and the General Rules for the Organization of Procuratorial Offices at all Levels, and provided for the systems and powers of the people’s courts and the people’s procuratorial bureaus. This started the establishment of the organizational system of the people’s courts and the people’s procuratorial bureaus at all levels from top to bottom in China.

The community-level election work began in March 1953 and ended in May 1954. By August 1954, the people’s congresses above the county level were all successively established. “Apart from the Taiwan Province, the Chinese people have set up regime in 25 provinces, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Tibet, Qamdo, three municipalities, 2,216 counties and administrative units functioning as counties, 163 cities, 821 municipal districts, and 224,660 townships. Besides, they have set up 65 autonomous organs in minority autonomous areas above the county level”.¹ In 5 years after the founding of People’s Republic of China, the achievements made in the construction of a people’s democratic government had transformed the people’s status from one who never enjoyed political rights into masters of the nation. The people could exercise their rights as masters of the nation, and administer their own country.

1.1.2. Establishment of the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics: From the promulgation of the 1954 Constitution to 1957. The period from 1954 to 1957 is the founding period of China’s socialist legal system. During this period, the first socialist Constitution of New China was promulgated. In early 1953, the Central People’s Government Committee decided to set up the Constitution-Drafting Committee of the People’s Republic of China, appointing Mao Zedong as the chairman of the Committee, and 32 people including Zhu De and Song Qingling as committee members. On September 15, 1954, the draft Constitution was submitted for consideration and adoption to the First Plenary Session of the First NPC, which provided constitutional foundation for the establishment and development of the socialist legal system and marked the formal establishment of the legal system in New China.

Upon the formulation of the 1954 Constitution, Mao Zedong said, “As a group must have rules, a country must have a charter. In our country, the Constitution is a general charter and a fundamental one. After the adoption of the draft Constitution, everyone in our country should practice it. In particular, personnel of state organs should take the lead in implementing the Constitution. First and foremost, every one of us present here (i.e. members who have participated in the 22nd meeting of the Central People’s Government Committee) must comply with the Constitution. If not, he will violate the Constitution”.

During this period, the Party shifted its work focus from class struggle to economic development. In the 18th National Congress of the CPC held in 1956, Liu Shaoqi pointed out in the political report, “One of the pressing tasks facing us in state affairs is to systematically formulate relatively complete laws and improve China’s legal system … The turbulent period of the revolution has passed, new relations of production have been established, and the tasks of the struggle have been changed into how to guarantee the smooth development of social productive forces. Therefore, the means of socialist revolution must be changed correspondingly, and a complete legal system is absolutely necessary”.

Conduct legislative work: The Constitution promulgated in 1954 stipulated the National People’s Congress (NPC) as the sole organ exercising national legislative power, and legislative power became centralized. According to statistics, from 1954 to 1957, laws and regulations formulated by NPC and its Standing Committee and relatively important legal documents enacted by the ministries and commissions under the State Council amounted to 731.²

The formulation of these laws, regulations, and ordinances enriched China’s legal system and provided legal basis and rule-by-law guarantee for China to achieve its economic, political, and social development along a legal path in its early years. Some important basic laws were being drafted fast, such as criminal law, civil law, and civil procedure law. Criminal law had been revised 22 times until 1957, and all the drafts were presented to NPC deputies to solicit their opinions; the drafting of the civil law was nearly completed, and the opinions of the units concerned were sought for; efforts were made to begin the drafting of criminal procedure law, and the first draft was completed in June, 1957.

Establish the judicial system: At the first session of the First NPC, Organic Law of the People’s Court and Organic Law of the People’s Procuratorate were reformulated. According to the stipulations in Organic Law of the People’s Court, the organizational system of courts changed from three levels (the count-level court, provincial-level court, and the Supreme People’s Court) to four levels (grassroots court, intermediate court, provincial higher court, and the Supreme People’s Court). Military court, railway court, the court for water transportation, and other special people’s courts were set up as stipulated, and the system of four-level double trial was implemented. As China’s highest judicial organ, the Supreme People’s Court was responsible for supervising the judicial work by local people’s courts and special people’s courts at all levels. Trial committees were set up within people’s courts at all levels to summarize trail experience and discuss major or hard cases as well as other trial-related issues.

As stipulated by Organic Law of the People’s Procuratorate, the leadership structure of the procuratorial organ was changed from “double leadership” (the higher procuratorial bureaus and the people’s government commissions at the same level) to “vertical leadership” (the procuratorates and specialized procuratorates at local levels are under the leadership of the higher procuratorates, and shall all work under the unified leadership of the Supreme Procuratorate). Four levels of procuratorates from top to bottom were set up, in which procuratorial commissions were under the leadership of the chief procurator. As China’s legal supervision organs, procuratorial organs were responsible for supervising general laws, investigations, trials, prisons, etc.

Some basic principles and systems were set up for China’s judicial work, such as the system of division of labor with individual responsibility, mutual supervision and mutual restraint among public security authorities, prosecutors, and courts, the system of authorities independently executed by prosecutors and judicial authorities, the principle of equality before the law, the system of people’s assessors, the system of public trial and defense, the collegial panel system, the avoidance system, the two-tier trial system, the system of reviewing death penalty, the trial supervision system, etc. These systems remain important bases in China’s judicial system.

Efforts were made to strengthen the construction of public security force. In the early years of the People’s Republic of China, the public security force was transformed from armed forces. After the Constitution was put into effect in 1954, the public security force separated ordinary police from armed police and was mainly responsible for maintaining social order. In 1957, the NPC Standing Committee formulated the Regulations for People’s Police, which explicitly stipulated the nature, tasks, functions, and powers of people’s police, thus bringing the construction of people’s police on the right track.

The Reeducation-through-labor system was established. The government issued the Reeducation-through-labor Regulations and the Provisional Treatment Measures on Releasing Reeducation-through-labor Criminals who complete the Imprisonment Term and Arranging Jobs for them. The two regulations established China’s Reeducation-through-labor system and made specific stipulations on the organs implementing Reeducationthrough-labor system, corresponding guidelines, policies, and measures as well as job placement for released criminals. Besides, the State Council released the Decisions on Reeducation-through-labor Issues to stipulate the scope and reeducation methods of those to be housed, reviewed, and reeducated through labor.

Advance Supervision and Legal Work: According to the organic law of the State Council, and that of local NPCs and local people’s committees, the Ministry of Supervision was set up under the State Council, supervision organs were set up for people’s committees and commissioner’s offices in provinces, municipalities, and cities divided into districts, and commissioner’s offices or supervision organs dispatched supervision teams under the straight leadership of the delegation authority to counties in need and cities undivided into districts. In November 1955, the State Council issued Organization Rules for the Ministry of Supervision, which made specific stipulations on the supervision system and put national supervision work on a codified and institutionalized track.

In November 1954, the Second Session of the First NPC Standing Committee approved the establishment of the Bureau of Legislative Affairs of the State Council. The State Council issued the Organization Rules for the Bureau of Legislative Affairs of the State Council, which made specific provisions on the tasks, internal institutions, systems, review regulations, and meeting systems of the bureau.

The lawyer system and the notarization system of the People’s Republic of China were set up consecutively. Until June, 1957, there were 19 bar associations, 817 legal advisory offices, over 2,500 full-time lawyers, and over 300 part-time lawyers in China; until late 1957, 51 cities in China set up notarial offices, over 1,200 city and county courts accepted notarial issues, and over 290,000 notarial matters were handled by nearly 1,000 full-time notaries. China’s arbitration system was initially established, and the departments concerned formulated the Provisional Stipulations on Arbitration Procedures of the Foreign Trade Arbitration Commission under China Arbitration Commission for the Promotion of International Trade, which made specific provisions on arbitration scope, the generation of arbitrators, arbitration organizations, adjudication, implementation, etc.

Establish and develop politics and law education: Politics and law education originated from the training of officers. In November 1949, Chaoyang University was rebuilt into the first university that cultivated judicial professionals in the People’s Republic of China, i.e. China University of Political Science and Law; in 1950, Renmin University of China was founded, its Law School became the first of its kind to offer formal law education in the People’s Republic of China, and law education for undergraduates was thus launched. By 1957, the number of higher departments of political science and law in the country had grown to 10 and the number of students enrolled reached 8,245. During the 8 years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, 13,090 students graduated from departments of political science and law, and 263 of them were postgraduates.

1.2.Development of the Socialist Legal System with Chinese Characteristics since the Reform and Opening-up

Since the reform and opening-up, the construction of a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics has experienced four development periods.

1.2.1.Restoration and reconstruction of rule of law: From 1976 to the promulgation of the Constitution in December 1982. On December 13, 1978, Deng Xiaoping made an important speech titled “Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts, and Unite as One to Look into the Future” at the Closing Ceremony of the Working Conference of the CPC Central Committee. In his speech, Deng Xiaoping stressed: “To ensure people’s democracy, we must strengthen our socialist legal system, which will enable democracy to be institutionalized and codified, and ensure that such a system and laws will not be changed whenever the leadership changes, or whenever the leaders change their views or shift the focus of their attention. The problem now is that our legal system is incomplete, with many laws yet to be enacted. So we should concentrate on the development of criminal law, civil law, procedural law, and other necessary laws, such as factory law, people’s commune law, forest law, grassland law, environmental protection law, labor law, foreign investment law, etc. These laws should be discussed and adopted through democratic procedures. Meanwhile, the procuratorial and judicial organs should be strengthened. All this will ensure that “there are laws to go by, that they are observed and strictly enforced, and that violators are brought to book”. He also pointed out, “There is a lot of legislative work to do, yet we don’t have enough trained people. Therefore, legal provisions must be less than perfect to start with, then be gradually improved upon. Some laws and statutes can be tried out in particular localities and later enacted nationally after the experience has been evaluated and improvements have been made. Individual legal provisions can be revised or supplemented one at a time, as necessary; there is no need to wait for a comprehensive revision of an entire body of law. In short, it is better to have some laws than none, and better to have them sooner than later”.³ These thoughts were accordant with the then practical situation, thus became the guiding principles for construction of the rule of law in China for some time after 1978, and were of great significance in accelerating the pace of the construction of the rule of law and in promptly solving the issue of “no laws to abide by”.

On December 18, 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC was held. The plenary session emancipated people’s mind to profoundly summarize the experience and lessons since the founding of New China. It elevated democracy and rule of law to a new high and made itself a milestone in the history of the rule of law in New China. The session maintained that in order to ensure people’s democracy, “we must strengthen our socialist legal system, which will enable democracy to be institutionalized and codified, and ensure that such a system and laws are consistent, continuous, and authoritative. All this will ensure that there are laws to go by, that they are observed and strictly enforced, and that violators are brought to book. From now on, we should put legislative work on the agenda of NPC and its standing committee. Procuratorial and judicial organs should keep due independence; they should stand faithful to laws, systems, people’s interests, and truths; they should ensure that people are equal before their own law and allow no one to have the privilege above the law”.

The beginning of legal construction in the new period was signified with large-scale legislation in 1979. In July, 1979, the Second Session of the Fifth NPC passed seven important laws, i.e. Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Organic Law of Local People’s Congresses and Local Governments at all Levels, Election Law for NPC and Local People’s Congresses at all Levels, Organic Law of Courts, Organic Law of Procuratorates, and Law on Chinese-foreign Equity Joint Ventures. “It is the first time in China’s history of socialist legislation to pass so many important laws at one meeting”.⁴ During the NPC session, Deng Xiaoping pointed out: “This session has formulated seven laws… This is a necessary precondition for creating a political situation of stability, unity, and liveliness… Following this session, we shall formulate a series of laws, such as civil law, which we haven’t got yet. We also need to enact laws governing economic development, such as those pertaining to factories. We’re now in need of laws, some hundred laws. Therefore, we have much work to do and this is just the beginning”.⁵

In September 1979, the CPC Central Committee released Instructions on Resolutely Ensuring the Implementation of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law (No. 64 Document issued by CPC in 1979), which stated that the promulgation of the criminal law and the criminal procedural law were of particular importance for strengthening the rule of law in socialism. Whether they can be strictly implemented was an important indicator of whether or not China implemented the socialist legal system. The Instructions on Resolutely Ensuring the Implementation of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law criticized some phenomena long-existing in the past, including despising the legal system, ignorance of law when there was a policy, substituting law with leaders’ words, and suppressing law with power, etc., and made explicit demands on how the Party committees should lead the judicial work: “(1) They shall act in strict accordance with criminal laws and criminal procedure laws, and resolutely alter and correct all the wrong thoughts and practices contravening these laws. Leaders of Party committees at all levels shall not regard their personal opinions as laws or force others to implement their opinions. (2) The Party’s direction over judicial work focuses on offering guidelines and policies. The most important way to strengthen Party leadership is to truly guarantee that people’s procuratorate and courts exercise their own authorities independently without the interference from administrative organs, groups, and individuals. (3) They shall rapidly improve judicial organs at all levels, and strive to build a strong team for judicial work. They shall publicize laws broadly and thoroughly to make preparations for officially implementing criminal law and criminal procedure law. Party organizations at all levels, officials, and all the Party members should take the lead in observing the law. The principle that everyone is equal before the law must be stuck to. No citizens shall be allowed to break the law, and no privilege shall be allowed to override the law. The system of case approval by part committees at all levels should be canceled. The system of examination and approval of cases by Party committees at all levels should be canceled”. The No.64 Document is considered as an important sign indicating the beginning of a new stage of socialist legal construction in China.

Along with the continuous strengthening of the legislative work, other aspects of the socialist legal system were restored and rebuilt. On September 9, 1979, the CPC Central Committee released instructions emphasizing “It is necessary to strengthen the Party’s leadership in judicial work to truly ensure that judicial organs exercise the authorities stipulated by the Constitution and laws. The Central Government’s leadership in judicial work focuses on formulating documents and policies”.⁶ At the same time, the Central Government instructed that “we should improve judicial organs at all levels quickly and strive to organize a forceful judicial workforce”.⁷ The 12th Session of the Fifth NPC in 1979 and the Second Session of the Sixth NPC Standing Committee in 1983 made supplements and modifications on Organic Law of the People’s Court, and the organization of the People’s Courts was thus further improved.

In March 1978, the First Session of the Fifth NPC passed the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China and Article 43 of the Constitution stipulated the reconstitution of the people’s procuratorate. On June 1, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate went into operation officially. On July 1, 1979, according to the Constitution, the Second Session of the Fifth NPC reviewed and passed the Organic Law of the People’s Procuratorate of the People’s Republic of China.

Public security, judicial, administrative, and safety organs were restored or rebuilt. On June 15, 1979, the political and legal team of the CPC Central Committee submitted Suggestions on Restoring Judicial Organs to the CPC Central Committee. On September 13, 1979, the 11th Session of the Fifth NPC decided to rebuild the Ministry of Justice on the basis of sound preparations “so as to adapt to the needs of socialist legal construction and strengthen judicial and administrative work”.⁸ Following this, local judicial offices at all levels were established, and judicial and administrative work was restored.

The Criminal Procedure Law and the Organic Law of the People’s Court promulgated in July 1979 clearly stipulated that the defendant could entrust a lawyer to defend him. In early 1979, Hulan County, Heilongjiang Province (the northeast province of China) began to offer lawyers to undertake criminal defense work. Later, Beijing Municipality, Shanghai Municipality, as well as seven cities and counties including Daqing and Harbin of Heilongjiang Province and Bishan of Sichuan Province restored lawyer organizations and some lawyer practices were carried out. By October 1980, there had been bar associations in Henan, Shaanxi, and Shandong Provinces, and preparatory meeting or preparatory leading groups for bar associations had been set up in 17 provinces and municipalities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Gansu, etc. There were 381 legal advisory offices and more than 3,000 full-time lawyers nationwide. In August 1980, the 15th Session of the Fifth NPC discussed and approved the Provisional Regulations of Lawyers of the People’s Republic of China.⁹

In January 1980, the Central Committee resumed the Central Political and Legal Committee.

In July 1982, China Law Society was established. Chinese Journal of Law, Democracy and Legal System, Jurisprudence Daily, and other major law journals have been resumed or started.

In June 1983, the State Council submitted a proposal to the First Session of the Sixth NPC to set up the Ministry of State Security so as to strengthen its leadership in national security work. On July 1, 1983, the founding conference of the Ministry of State Security was held. The Ministry of National Security consisted of the former Ministry of Central Investigation, the Political Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, some units of the United Front Work Department of CPC Central Committee, and some units of the State Commission of Science and Technology for National Defense Industry.

1.2.2.Development in the rule of law: From the promulgation of the Constitution in 1982 to the holding of the 14th National Congress of the CPC in 1992. The Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee removed mental obstacles for legal construction in the new period, and thoroughly modifying the Constitution became the top priority. In September 1980, the NPC set up the Committee for the Modification of the Constitution, with Ye Jianying as its chairman. Based on a fully expanding democracy, the Fifth Session of the Fifth NPC passed a new constitution on December 12, 1982. The 1982 Constitution not only inherited basic principles of the 1954 Constitution but also made important reforms and improvements in consideration of the needs of socialist construction in the new period. For instance, the preamble to the Constitution and Article 5 of the general program established principles of the socialist rule of law and stipulated the fundamental status and constitutional protection system to safeguard the unity and dignity of the rule of law. The Constitution strengthened the construction of the permanent offices of the supreme organs of state power and expanded the functions and powers of the NPC Standing Committee, thus intensifying the legislative and supervisory functions of the NPC. The Constitution strengthened the establishment of local power, made it a rule that people’s congresses above county level set up standing committees, and endowed them with the obligations to guarantee the Constitution, with laws being implemented within their own administrative areas. The People’s congresses and their Standing Committees in provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities have the right to formulate local regulations and the obligation to supervise governments, people’s courts, and people’s procuratorates. The Constitution made new supplements and clearer stipulations on basic civil rights and strengthened protection measures. Besides, the Constitution carried out many other reforms on strengthening state power construction and improving state systems.

As an important milestone in the history of the rule of law in New China, the 1982 Constitution laid the foundation for and greatly promoted and guaranteed the legal construction in the new period.

Article 31 of the 1982 Constitution clearly stipulated that “China shall set up special administrative regions when it is necessary. The systems adopted within special administrative regions shall be determined by NPC according to practical situations and in the form of law”. In December 1984, China and Britain signed the Joint Communique on Hong Kong Issue, which confirmed that the People’s Republic of China resumed its sovereignty over Hong Kong, thus realizing the wish shared by all the Chinese people of regaining the sovereignty of Hong Kong over the past 100 years.¹⁰ On April 10, 1985, the Third Session of the Sixth NPC officially approved Sino-British Joint Communique and decided to found the Committee for Drafting Basic Laws for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. On April 4, 1990, the Third Session of the Seventh NPC passed Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. On April 13, 1987, the Chinese and Portuguese governments signed Joint Communique on the Macao Issue, and the drafting of Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China was put on the agenda. On April 13, 1988, the First Session of the Seventh NPC passed Decisions on the Establishment of the Committee for Drafting Basic Laws for the Macao Special Administrative Region. On March 31, 1993, the First Session of the Eighth NPC passed Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. The issuing of Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China was a great event in China’s national life and legal construction. It established the principle of “one country, two systems” in the form of basic law and was the pioneering work in the legislative history of China. It also established the fundamental system after the reunification of Hong Kong and Macao with the code that Hong Kong and Macao must follow in all aspects of their life in the future, and provided an important legal guarantee for Hong Kong and Macao’s economic development and political stability.

In February 1988, the CPC Central Committee officially proposed the amendment of the 1982 Constitution, acknowledged the legitimacy of the private-owned economy, and affirmed that land could be transferred in accordance with the law, because the economic system stipulated in Article 6 of the 1982 Constitution had a serious flaw—“The socialist economic system of the People’s Republic of China is based on the public ownership of the means of production, that is, ownership by the whole people and collective ownership by the working masses. Socialist public ownership eliminates the system that exploits people, and implements the principle of doing one’s best and allocating according to work”. This means that only the ownership by the whole people and the collective ownership of the working people are legitimate, and the Constitution only admits that the economy of the public ownership is lawful. In April 1988, the First Session of the Seventh NPC passed Amendment to the Constitution, stipulating that “The state allows private economy to exist and develop within the limits prescribed by law”, and that “land-use right can be transferred in accordance with the law”. Later on May 19, 1990, the State Council promulgated the Provisional Regulations on the Grant and Transfer of Use Rights of Urban State-owned Land (Decree No. 55) which became specific rules for the trade of land-use rights.

In November 1985, the 13th Session of the Standing Committee of the Sixth NPC passed the Resolution on the Popularization of Legal Knowledge among Citizens. And notable progress was made in legal popularization work, and people’s concept of the rule of law and legal awareness were significantly improved.

In this period, in order to guarantee that socialist modernization goes smoothly, the NPC and its Standing Committee focused on formulating economic laws in their legislative work, thus drawing up Economic Contract Law, Statistic Law, Environmental Protection Law (Trial), Marine Environmental Protection Law, Law on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, Law on Food Hygiene (Trial), and Traffic Safety Law at Sea, as well as approving the Regulations on Land Requisition for State Construction. In the meantime, to adapt to the needs of opening-up to the outside world and to facilitate the introduction of foreign capital and technologies, the NPC and its Standing Committee enacted the Law on Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures, the Tax Law on Chinese-foreign Equity Joint Ventures, the Tax Law on Foreign Enterprises, the Individual Income Tax law, the Trademark Law, and the Patent Law, and approved the Regulations on Special Economic Zones in Guangdong Province. Some basic laws in China’s economy were incomplete, so important economic laws and laws for foreign economic cooperation need to be formulated so as to guarantee that the reform and opening-up policy and economic restructuring can progress smoothly.¹¹ In 1993, in summarizing the legislative work of the Seventh NPC, Vice-Chairman Peng Chong said that over the past 5 years, the NPC and its Standing Committee passed the Amendment to the Constitution and formulated 59 laws and 27 decisions on legal issues. In 1988, some articles of the Constitution were modified, the status of the private economy was recognized, and land-use rights could be transferred. All this produced a positive effect on China’s reform and opening-up and economic construction. The Standing Committee had always taken the formulation of laws on economic construction and reform and opening-up as the priority of its legislative work. It had formulated 21 economic laws, supplemented and amended the Civil Procedure Law (Trial), and improved land management law, law on joint Chinese and foreign enterprises, environmental protection law, patent law, trademark law, and other laws.¹²

1.2.3.Building the rule of law in the socialist market economy and implementing the basic policy of law-based governance of China: From the 14th CPC National Congress in 1992 to the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012. Two major events that took place in the period between 1992 and 1997 shall go down in the legal history of the People’s Republic of China. One is that the socialist market economy system was established and the corresponding law system was initially set up. The other is that the basic policies of law-based governance and the construction of a socialist country based on the rule of law were established, and that the notion of the rule of law had initially become common among the entire Party and the people throughout the country. On the road to the exploration of socialism, it is the first time for China to combine market economy and socialist system and integrate the people being masters of the country, Party leadership, and the rule of law, thus initiating a new developmental road for socialist theories and practices with Chinese characteristics.

In 1992, the report for the 14th CPC National Congress clearly pointed out that the objective of China’s economic restructuring is to establish and improve the socialist market economy system, with public ownership and the system of distribution according to work playing a dominant role, and different economic sectors and modes of distribution developing alongside. It set the overall reform goal, that is, building a socialist market economy. Accordingly, great importance shall be attached to legal construction, legislative work shall be strengthened, and a legal system for the development of a socialist market economy shall be established and improved, especially speeding up to formulate and improve laws and regulations that can guarantee reform and opening-up, strengthening macroeconomic management and regulate microeconomic behaviors. All is pressing for the establishment of the socialist market economy system.

In 1993, as China’s reform and opening-up deepened, amending the Constitution once again became an urgent task. In March 1993, the First Session of the Eighth NPC passed Amendment to the Constitution, which included the establishment of socialist theories with Chinese characteristics, reform and opening-up, and the socialist market economy in the form of the fundamental law. Amendment to the Constitution set the status of socialist market economy in the Constitution, marking that China had begun to improve various economic laws and regulations based on the Constitution, totally incorporating market-oriented reform into the Constitution-centered legal system. Practice has proven that the two modifications in 1988 and 1993 played an important role in promoting and guaranteeing China’s reform and opening-up and modernization. To safeguard the authority and stability of the Constitution, China began to adopt the method of deliberating and promulgating Constitutional Amendments and appended them to the text of the Constitution since 1988.

In March 1993, the First Session of the Eighth NPC passed a constitutional amendment, expounding that China was in the initial stage of socialism, and it set as a form the fundamental law constructing the theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, insisting on reform and opening-up and the socialist market economy. This would be conducive to proceeding from the actual conditions in regard to building the country; it is conducive to attracting foreign investment and introducing advanced science and technology to serve China and promote the development of the productive forces. Determining the position of the socialist market economy in the Constitution means that China began to consummate various economic laws and regulations based on the Constitution on a large scale so as to fully incorporate market-oriented reforms into the constitutional system. Practice proved that these two amendments in 1988 and 1993 played an important role in promoting and safeguarding China’s reform and opening-up as well as its modernization drive. In order to defend the authority and stability of the Constitution, China has started to adopt the method of deliberating and promulgating Constitutional Amendments and appended it to the text of the Constitution since 1988.

In November 1993, the Third Plenary Session of the 14th CPC National Congress clearly put forward for the first time the basic framework for the socialist market economy, that is, “establishing a modern enterprise system that adapts to the needs of the market economy and is characterized by clear property rights and power and responsibilities, separation of governments and enterprises as well as scientific management”, thus promoting the reform of China’s state-owned enterprises toward the direction of straightening out property relations and achieving a modern enterprise system. Such a revolution showed a leverage for two tasks in China’s economic restructuring, that is, separating governments and enterprises and transforming the enterprises’ operational mechanisms. The two tasks cannot be achieved without a complete set of legal system that adapts to the operation of a modern enterprise system, including Corporate Law, Securities Law, Financial Law, and Bankruptcy Law. One key point in the framework of a socialist market economy is to establish the framework for the socialist market economy’s legal system.

In 1996, the Fourth Session of the Eighth NPC enacted “Nine Five Year Plans” on National Economy and Social Development and Objectives for 2010, which prescribed the contents of “ruling the country by law and building a socialist country based on the rule of law” in the form of a document with the efficacy of national law for the first time. Meanwhile, heated discussions on the rule of law occurred in the law circle, which focused on “legal system” and “rule of law”.

In 1997, the 15th National Congress of the CPC set the principle of ruling the country by law as the basic policy for the Party to lead the people in administering the country and establishing a socialist country ruled by law as the goal of democratic politics. Ruling the country by law is the Party’s basic policy of leading the people in administering the country. It is an objective requirement for the development of a socialist market economy, an important symbol of the progress of social civilization, and an important guarantee for the country’s lasting peace and stability. In March 1999, the constitutional amendment passed at the Second Session of the Ninth NPC included the guiding ideological status of Deng Xiaoping Theory, the basic policy of governing the country according to law, the basic economic system and distribution system of the state at the present stage, and the important role of the non-publicowned economy in the Constitution, making governing the country in accordance with the law a basic constitutional principle. China is a country with a long history of feudalism, and therefore historically lacked the tradition of democracy and the rule of law. It is a historic leap in setting the rule of law as a basic policy of governing the country and replacing the rule of man with a legal system and eventually with the rule of law.

In 2002, the 16th National Congress of the CPC made it clear that the most fundamental task in developing socialist democratic politics was to unify organically the efforts of upholding the Party’s leadership and the people being masters of the country and governing the country according to law. The leadership of the Party is the fundamental guarantee for the people to be masters of the country and governing the country according to law. It is the essential requirement of the socialist democratic politics that the people are masters of the country, whereas governing the country according to law is the basic policy for the Party to lead the people in governing the country.

In 2004, the Second Session of the 10th NPC passed the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment highlights the concept of “people-oriented” and the principle of guaranteeing human rights and makes modifications and improvements on many important systems prescribed by the Constitution. In particular, it includes important contents into the Constitution, such as the “Three Represents”, respecting and guaranteeing human rights and protecting legitimate private property. And it reconfirms significant achievements of theoretical innovation and practical development of reform and opening-up in the form of the fundamental law.

In 2007, the 17th CPC National Congress worked out strategic plans on future democratic and legal construction, and put forward the general task of comprehensively implementing the rule of law and accelerating the building of a socialist country governed by law. These plans and tasks demanded scientific and democratic legislation to improve the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics. This Congress suggested to strengthen the implementation of the Constitution and laws, ensure that everyone is equal before law, maintain social justice and fairness, and safeguard the unity, dignity, and authority of the socialist rule of law, and called for promoting law-based administration of government, deepening reform on the judicial system, and strengthening the construction of procuratorial and judicial teams. It also called for increasing legal publicity and education and spreading the spirit of the rule of law, and urged to respect and guarantee human rights and safeguard the authority of the Constitution and laws.

In March 2011, Wu Bangguo, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, announced in his work report to the Fourth Session of the 11th NPC on the work of the Standing Committee of the NPC that the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics took shape as scheduled. This legal system, based on China’s national conditions and reality and adapting to the needs of reform and opening-up and socialist modernization, embodies the will of the Party and the people, and is an organic integration of the related laws of the Constitution, civil and commercial laws, and other legal branches, with the Constitution in the supreme place, the laws as the main body, and administrative and local regulations as the major components. It is a legal foundation for socialism with Chinese characteristics to retain its nature, a legal reflection of the innovative practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and a legal guarantee for the prosperity of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Its establishment ensures that there are laws to abide by in economic, political, cultural, and social development in the country, and marks another major step forward in the legislative work of building the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics.

1.2.4.The second spring of the rule of law: The construction of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics since the 18th National Congress of the CPC. If we say that the strategic decisions made at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee on the construction of democracy and the rule of law ushered the “first spring” of building a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics since the reform and opening-up, then, a series of major decisions and strategic plans made since the 18th National Congress of the CPC for comprehensively deepening the reform, comprehensively advancing the rule of law, accelerating the building of a law-based China, and promoting the stategoverned modernization are and will certainly give birth to the “second spring” of building a socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics.

The 18th National Congress of the CPC made it clear that comprehensively advancing the principle of governing the country according to law and accelerating the building of a socialist country ruled by law are the fundamental tasks of building a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics at a new historical starting point.

On December 4, 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a speech at the General Assembly commemorating the 30th anniversary of the promulgation and implementation of the current Constitution. The speech further highlighted the idea that “To uphold the law-based governance of the country, first we must adhere to the governance of the country based on the Constitution; to adhere to exercising state power on the basis of the law, first we must adhere to exercising state power on the basis of the Constitution”, and emphasized the importance of the implementation of the Constitution and laws. This speech has a programmatic and guiding significance for China’s rule of law.

On February 23, 2013, the Central Political Bureau conducted the fourth collective study on comprehensively advancing law-based governance of the country. Xi Jinping presided over the study. He stressed that building a well-off society in an all-round way has put higher demands on ruling the country by law. We must comprehensively implement the guiding principles of the 18th CPC National Congress, take as our guide Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development, comprehensively promote that a well-conceived approach is taken to legislation, that law is enforced strictly, that justice is administered impartially, and that law is observed by everyone. We must 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 to open up a new situation in governing the country according to law.

The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee further proposed new requirements and new tasks for promoting the establishment of the rule of law in China: upholding the constitutional and legal authority; deepening the reform of the administrative law enforcement system; ensuring the independent and impartial exercise of prosecutorial and judicial power according to law; improving the operational mechanism of judicial power; and improving the judicial guarantee system for human rights. The session also set 17 reform tasks for the work on political and legal issues.

In order to actively and steadily push forward the reform of the judicial system, the leading group for comprehensively deepening the reform passed Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Judicial System and Social System and Implementation of the Division of Labor Scheme, the Framework Opinions on Certain Issues Concerning the Pilot Reform of the Judicial System, and the Shanghai Municipal Judicial Pilot Reform Scheme, which further stipulated the objectives and principles for deepening the reform of the judicial system, and the road map and the timetable for implementing the reform. It also defined the policy orientation for solving several key and difficult problems in the pilot reform in an orderly manner. As a result, China’s reform of the judicial system has entered a new phase in which the top-level design and the practical exploration as well as the overall promotion and the key breakthroughs are integrated.

In October 2014, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC was held in Beijing to study the issue of building a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics. In this session was passed the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPC on Certain Major Issues concerning Comprehensively Advancing Law-based Governance of China, which marked a major shift from the construction of the law system towards the system of the rule of law in China; marked a historic move of China from a major country with many laws to a powerful country under the rule of law; and marked a new stage and a historic starting point of China’s governing the country by law and its legal construction.

The Resolution includes the great significance, the guiding principles, the general objectives, the basic principles, and the general tasks of advancing the law-based governance of China, and consists of the following seven parts.

1.2.4.1. Part 1: Introduction: Keeping to the path of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics and establishing a Chinese-style socialist rule-of-law system. This mainly includes: First, it explicitly sets out the guiding principles for comprehensively advancing the law-based governance of the country. In comprehensively advancing the governance of the country according to law, we must implement the guiding principles of the 18th National Congress of the CPC, 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, and the law-based governance 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.

Second, it clearly states the overall objective of comprehensively advancing the rule of law is to build a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics and a socialist country governed by the rule of law.

Third, it explicitly sets forth the five basic principles that must be observed in comprehensively advancing the rule of law: uphold the leadership of the CPC; uphold the principal position of the people; ensure that everyone is equal before the law; combine the rule of law with the rule of virtue; and base our work on the actual situation in China.

1.2.4.2. Part 2: Improving the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, at the heart of which is the Constitution, and strengthening enforcement of the Constitution. This mainly includes: First, innovation of concepts and basic ideas. “The law is of great value in the governance of a country, and good laws are a prerequisite for good governance. To build a socialist rule-of-law system with Chinese characteristics, we must begin with legislation, allowing legislation to play the role of guiding and driving forward the development of the rule of law, and focus on the key task of improving the quality of legislation. We must firmly adhere to the notion that the people always come first and it is for them that legislation is made, put into effect the core socialist values, and make sure that every piece of legislation is in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution, reflects the will of the people, and enjoys their support. We need to follow the principles of justice, impartiality, and openness throughout the whole legislative process, improve our legislative systems and mechanisms, and place equal emphasis on making new laws, revising existing ones, abolishing those that are unnecessary, and interpreting laws that need clarification in order to make our legislation more responsive, systemic, targeted, and effective”.

Second, improving our system for enforcing the Constitution and for overseeing its enforcement. “We need to improve the system by which the NPC and its Standing Committee oversee the enforcement of the Constitution, and put better procedures and mechanisms in place to interpret the Constitution. We need to improve our systems for putting on records and reviewing normative documents and strengthen our capacity in this respect. We need to bring all such documents within the purview of ours records and reviews”. Besides, according to the Resolution, December 4 has been made China’s Constitution Day, and a system of affirmations of allegiance is established, whereby all those who are elected or appointed to public office by people’s congresses or their standing committees make a public pledge of allegiance to the Constitution when they officially assume office.

Third, improving the legislative system. (1) Improving the procedures for making decisions on major issues in the legislative work of the Party. All instances where legislation involves major systemic or policyrelated adjustments must be referred to the CPC Central Committee for discussion and a decision. For constitutional revision, the Central Committee shall make proposals to the NPC, and the NPC shall carry out revision in accordance with the procedures stipulated in the Constitution. For major issues concerning the formulation and revision of laws, the Leading Party Group of the NPC Standing Committee shall report to the Central Committee. (2) Improving the systems and mechanisms through which those people’s congresses with legislative power lead legislative work, and ensuring that people’s congresses and their standing committees play the dominant role in legislative work. A system will be established whereby NPC’s special committees and the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee organize relevant departments to participate in the drafting of laws which are of a comprehensive or fundamental nature, and those that affect the overall picture. The proportion of full-time standing committee members within people’s congresses who have practical experience relating to the rule of law need to be increased. Besides, in accordance with the law, a sound system whereby specialists may act as legislative advisors to the special committees of people’s congresses and the legislative affairs commissions of the standing committee of people’s congressed need to be established. (3) Strengthening and improving the government legislative system to make progress in the administrative regulations, rules and regulations, as well as the public participation in the government legislative mechanism. Government legislative affairs agencies shall organize the drafting of major administrative laws and regulations. (4) Clearly defining the boundaries of legislative power and employing systems, mechanisms, and procedures to prevent the enactment of law for the protection of departmental or local interests. The legal interpretation work needs to be strengthened to promptly clarify the meaning of legal provisions and why they are applicable. The legislative power of local authorities need to be clearly defined and what they may legislate on needs to be delineated. Works need to be done to accord local legislative powers to all cities which are subdivided into districts.

Fourth, working hard to legislate more effectively and democratically. (1) The system of soliciting comments during the drafting of laws and regulations from the deputies to people’s congresses need to be improved. The systems for encouraging the general public to propose items to be legislated on and for them to debate about legislative items need to be improved. Channels and methods by which legislative bodies lead legislation while other sectors of society also participate in an orderly manner need to be improved. The possibility of entrusting third parties with the drafting of laws and regulations need to be explored. (2) The mechanisms by which legislatures communicate with the general public need to be improved. The channels through which citizens can, in an orderly way, participate in the legislative process need to be expanded. The mechanisms for soliciting comments from the public on drafts of laws and regulations, as well as for giving feedback about the use to which these comments have been put, need to be improved, and it’s of great necessity to achieve broad social consensus. (3) The procedures for voting on the drafts of laws need to be improved, and we need to allow important articles to be voted on separately.

Fifth, strengthening legislation in key areas. “We need to guarantee the rights of citizens in accordance with the law; quickly improve laws and institutions that ensure equal rights, equal opportunities, and fair rules for all; ensure that citizens’ personal rights, property rights, basic political rights, and other forms of rights are inviolable; ensure that citizens’ economic, cultural, and social rights are respected; and achieve an increasing level of the rule of law in the safeguarding of citizens’ rights. We need to strengthen awareness throughout the whole of society about the need to respect and safeguard human rights and improve the channels and methods by which remedy can be found for violations of citizens’ rights”.

Sixth, coordinating the country’s legislative work with the decisions on reform to make sure that all of the country’s major reforms have a legal basis, and that legislative work is carried out proactively to meet the needs of reform, as well as economic and social development. Decisions that prove to work well in practice should be promptly elevated to law. When it comes to reform measures for which conditions are not yet ripe or which first need to be tried and tested in practice, authorization must be secured first in accordance with legal procedures. Laws and regulations that are not suitable to the requirements of reform must be revised or rescinded without delay.

1.2.4.3. Part 3: Thoroughly advancing law-based government administration and accelerating the building of a rule-of-law government. This mainly includes: First, innovation of concepts and basic ideas—“The very life and authority of the law lies in its enforcement. Governments at all levels must work under the leadership of the Party and in line with the rule of law. They must make innovations in the system of law enforcement, refine law enforcement procedures, advance a coordinated approach to law enforcement, strictly demand accountability in law enforcement, and establish a system of law-based government administration that combines rights with responsibilities and that is authoritative and effective. They must move more quickly to become the rule-of-law governments which have well-conceived functions and statutorily-defined powers and responsibilities, strictly enforce the law, and are open and impartial, clean and efficient, and more credible and law-abiding”.

Second, fully carrying out government functions in accordance with the law. (1) “We need to improve legislation on administrative organization and procedures, and promote the codification of governmental institutions, functions, powers, procedures, and responsibilities into law… Administrative bodies must not assume power which is not prescribed by law, make decisions that reduce or encroach upon the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, legal persons, or other organizations, or increase their obligations when there is no legal basis for such decisions. We need to promote a system in which government powers are clearly delineated”. (2) “We need to work to ensure that the powers of each level of government and the way they are exercised are rooted more firmly in laws and procedures. We need to improve the legislation defining the powers of governments at different levels, especially power sharing between central government and local governments: we need to strengthen the central government’s functions of exercising macro-level regulation and establishing systems, and the powers necessary for it to enforce the law. We also need to strengthen the responsibility of governments at the provincial level for overall planning on ensuring access to basic public services within their jurisdictions is increasingly equitable; and strengthen municipal and county governments’ performance of their duties and functions”.

Third, improving law-based decision-making mechanisms. (1) A mechanism needs to be established for administrative agencies to review the legality of their major decisions, and we need to “ensure that those decisions that have not undergone or have not passed the legality review are not submitted for collective deliberation”. (2) “We need to actively implement the system of government legal advisors”, and “make sure these advisors play an active role in helping make major administrative decisions and promoting law-based government administration”. (3) “We need to establish a lifelong accountability system and a mechanism for retroactive investigation of liability for major decisions. For very bad decisions and for decisions that should, in accordance with the law, have been made promptly but were delayed, resulting in major losses or negative effects, top administrative officials and other leaders and individuals responsible will be held legally accountable”.

Fourth, deepening structural reform in administrative enforcement of law. (1) “We must carry out coordinated law enforcement, greatly reducing the number of categories of government law enforcement employees at the municipal and county levels. We need to focus on promoting coordinated enforcement of law in the areas of food and drug safety, industrial and commercial administration, quality inspection, public health, workplace safety, culture, tourism, resources and the environment, agriculture, forestry, water conservancy, transportation, urban and rural development, and marine industries and fisheries. Cross-departmental coordination in law enforcement may be adopted where conditions allow”. (2) “We must improve regulation of administrative enforcement of law at the municipal and county levels, strengthening unified leadership and coordination. We must develop a sound system of administrative compulsion and refine the system of law enforcement by urban management officers”. (3) “We must strictly implement certification and credentials systems for those working in administrative law enforcement… We must strictly implement a system in which law enforcement officers do not collect the fines they issue, and the management of revenue and expenditures is separated”. (4) “We must improve the mechanism for linking administrative law enforcement with the administration of criminal justice, better define standards and procedures for case referrals, and establish a system for sharing information, releasing updates on cases, and referring cases between agencies charged with administrative enforcement of law, public security agencies, procuratorates, and courts. We must be firm in eliminating the phenomena of failing to refer cases when necessary, creating difficulties for their referral, and issuing administrative penalties instead of criminal sentences, so as to ensure that administrative punishment is well coordinated with criminal punishment”.

Fifth, ensuring that law is enforced in a strict, standardized, impartial, and civil manner. (1) “We need to improve the procedures for law enforcement and establish a record keeping system to document the whole process of law enforcement. We need to clarify specific procedures with a focus on such aspects of law enforcement as administrative licensing, administrative punishment, administrative compulsion, administrative revenue collection, the charging of administrative fees, and administrative inspection. We must strictly implement a system by which major decisions on law enforcement are reviewed to check their consistency with the law”. “We must establish a sound system of baselines for administrative discretionary powers … We must strengthen the application of information technology and information sharing in administrative law enforcement, and make law enforcement activities more efficient and standardized”. “We must fully implement the accountability system for administrative enforcement of law … We must strengthen supervision of law enforcement”, and “punish instances of corruption in law enforcement”.

Sixth, strengthening checks on administrative powers and supervision over the exercise of these powers. (1) In strengthening checks on administrative powers, we need to focus on strengthening checks on government powers. “We need to improve supervision among governments at different levels as well as specialized supervision, improve supervision of governments by those at the next level up, and establish a permanent system of supervision. We need to improve remedial and accountability mechanisms”. (2) “We must improve the auditing system, and make sure that supervision is exercised through independent auditing and in accordance with the law … Leadership of auditing agencies by those at the next level up needs to be strengthened. Efforts need to be made to explore unified management of human, financial, and material resources of local auditing agencies below the provincial level. We need to increase the level of professionalism in auditing”.

Seventh, building transparency into the work of the government across the board. (1) Decision-making, implementation, management, services, and outcomes are all open to the public. Special emphasis needs to be placed on making information on government budgets, the allocation of public resources, the approval and implementation of major construction projects, and the development of public interest projects available to the public. (2) A public notice system for administrative enforcement of law needs to be put into effect. “We need to press ahead with increasing the use of information technology in making government work more transparent”.

1.2.4.4. Part 4: Ensuring judicial impartiality and improving judicial credibility. This mainly includes: First, innovation of concept and basic ideas—Justice is the lifeblood of the rule of law. Judicial justice encourages social justice, while judicial injustice cripples it. We must improve the system for managing the judiciary and the mechanisms for exercising judicial powers, standardize judicial behavior, tighten supervision over judicial activities, and make every effort to ensure that the people feel justice is served in every case.

Second, improving the system for ensuring the law-based, independent, and impartial exercise of judicial and procuratorial powers. (1) “We need to develop record keeping, reporting, and accountability systems to deal with officials intervening in judicial activities, including the handling of specific cases”. (2) “We must improve the systems whereby administrative agencies appear and defend themselves in court in accordance with the law, support the court in handling cases filed against them, and respect and carry out effective judgments made by the court. We need to improve legal provisions on punishing illegal activities such as acting to impede judicial bodies’ performance of their duties in accordance with the law, refusal to carry out effective judgments or rulings, and contempt of court”. (3) A sound mechanism to protect those working in the judiciary in the performance of their statutory duties needs to be established.

Third, improving the allocation of judicial functions and powers. (1) “We need to improve the systems and mechanisms by which public security organs, procuratorates, and courts as well as administrative agencies for justice each perform their respective functions while investigative, procuratorial, judicial, and enforcement powers complement and constrain each other”. (2) “We must improve the judicial system, and carry out pilot structural reforms to separate judicial powers from powers of enforcement. We need to improve and unify the systems by which penal decisions are enforced. We need to reform the systems for managing human, financial, and material resources of judicial bodies, and explore ways to separate the judicial and procuratorial powers of courts and procuratorates from their powers to manage judicial administrative affairs”. (3) Circuit courts need to be established under the Supreme People’s Court. “We need to explore the establishment of people’s courts and people’s procuratorates whose jurisdiction extends beyond administrative divisions to handle trans-regional cases… We need to improve the systems and mechanisms for dealing with administrative litigation”. (4) “We must reform the system by which courts accept cases, replacing the system within which cases to be filed are first reviewed with a system by which these cases are instead registered. The courts must take on all cases that are legally mandated to be accepted, thus safeguarding the right of the people to litigate”. (5) “We need to improve the system concerning the different levels of trials. The court of first instance should focus on the finding of facts and the application of law, and the court of second instance should focus on settling legal disputes over facts and ensure that the second instance is the final instance. Retrials should concentrate on correcting erroneous rulings and maintaining the authority of rulings. If during its duties a procuratorate discovers that an administrative body has exercised its functions and powers in a way contrary to the law or has neglected its duties, the procuratorate should urge it to rectify such practices. We need to search for ways of building a system for the filing of public interest litigation by procuratorates”. (6) “We must clarify the powers of every level within judicial bodies and build more robust mechanisms for internal supervision and restraints on power. Personnel within a judicial body must not intervene in each other’s handling of cases, which is a violation of regulations; record keeping and accountability systems need to be established to deal with such interventions. We need to improve the accountability system for principal judges, collegial benches, principal procurators, and principal investigating officers in their handling of cases in order to make sure that those in charge take responsibility”.

Fourth, pressing ahead with the strict administration of justice. (1) “We need to strengthen and standardize judicial interpretation and case guidance, and unify the standards for the application of law”. (2) “We must implement reform of the litigation system focusing on court proceedings”. (3) “We need to clarify the duties, work procedures, and standards for those working in the judiciary, and adopt a lifelong accountability system for holding judicial officers to account for the quality of their handling of cases and a system for retroactively holding them accountable for erroneous rulings”.

Fifth, guaranteeing the people’s participation in the administration of justice. (1) “We need to improve the system of people’s assessors … Step by step, we need to see to it that people’s assessors only participate in determining the facts rather than applying the law”. (2) “We need to create mechanisms that keep the judiciary “in the sunshine”, making it open, dynamic, transparent, and convenient for the public to access … We need to ensure to establish a system for posting all effective legal instruments online for public inquiry”.

Sixth, providing stronger judicial protection of human rights. (1) “We need to improve the system of laws that ensure implementation of legal principles, including the principles that punishable offenses must be codified in law; that there should be no punishment in cases where there is doubt over guilt; and that evidence obtained illegally must be excluded”. We need to take effective measures to solve the difficulties in enforcing the law, formulate a compulsory enforcement law, and standardize the judicial procedures of seizing, sequestrating, freezing, and handling assets involved in cases. (3) We need to implement the systems of final judgment and termination of litigation; regarding complaints filed through letters or visits, we need to ensure those related to litigation are filed and handled separately from other complaints; and ensure the litigant’s right to appeal according to law are protected.

Seventh, tightening supervision over judicial activities. (1) The people’s supervisor system needs to be improved. Media coverage of cases needs to be standardized to prevent public opinion from affecting judicial fairness. (2) We need to standardize the contact and association between judicial personnel and parties, lawyers, specifically-related persons, and intermediary organizations according to law. (3) We need to resolutely break all kinds of unspoken rules, must not allow extrajudicial mercy, must not allow relations cases, favor cases, and money cases.

1.2.4.5. Part 5: Strengthening everyone’s awareness of the rule of law and building a rule-of-law society. This mainly includes: First, innovation of the concept and basic ideas—The authority of the law stems from people’s heartfelt support for and sincere faith in it. The people’s rights and interests need to be safeguarded by the law and the authority of the law needs to be upheld by the people. We must carry forward the spirit of socialist rule of law and foster a socialist rule-of-law culture, arouse greater enthusiasm and initiative among all members of society for putting the rule of law into practice, and create an atmosphere in which it is honorable to abide by the law, and disgraceful to break the law, so that all the people will become faithful advocators, conscientious observers, and strong defenders of socialist rule of law.

Second, helping all of society to foster awareness of the rule of law. We need to guide all the people to observe the law consciously, look to the law if they meet with difficulties, and rely on the law to resolve their problems. We need to improve the system for government employees to learn and apply the law, and include the Constitution and other laws within the content studied by central groups of Party committees (leading Party member groups) and make them the substance of compulsory courses at Party schools, institutes of socialism, academies of governance, and executive leadership academies. The education of the rule of law should be added in the national education system starting with the youth by putting into place courses on the rule of law at primary and secondary schools. (2) We need to improve the mechanism for promoting publicity for and education on legal knowledge. We need to incorporate the education on the rule of law into our initiatives of cultural and ethical progress, carry out activities among the public to foster a rule-of-law culture, improve the system by which the media popularizes the legal knowledge for public interest, draw increasingly on new media and new technology in these initiatives, and improve the effectiveness of legal literacy. (3) We need to increase public integrity, improve the recording of information about the citizens’ and organizations’ compliance with the law and credibility, and refine mechanisms that reward those who obey the law and are credible and punish those who break the law and lack credibility so that all the people consciously respect and abide by the law. (4) We need to strengthen the building of civic morality and give play to the role of the rule of law in solving prominent problems in the field of morality.

Third, advancing law-based governance at multiple levels and in multiple areas. (1) We need to remain committed to practicing governance that is systemic, law-based, and comprehensive and directed at the root of problems that it seeks to address, and increase the level of legalization of social governance. (2) We need to encourage people’s organizations and social organizations to help build a society ruled by law. We need to encourage social organizations to guide the behavior of their members, subject them to rules, and safeguard their rights and interests. (3) We need to handle appropriately social issues involving ethnic groups and religion on the basis of law and promote harmony in relations among ethnic groups and among religions.

Fourth, establishing a complete system of legal services. (1) We will move forward with the development of the public legal service system that covers both urban and rural populations, and provide better legal services in the fields that pertain to the well-being of the people. (2) We need to improve lawyers, public notarization, and other legal services, as well as the system for integrated management of forensic evidence.

Fifth, improving the mechanism for people to defend their rights and resolve their disputes according to the law. (1) We will strengthen the authority of the law in safeguarding the people’s rights and interests and resolving social disputes. (2) We will bring the handling of complaints expressed through letters or visits into line with the rule of law, and make sure that people’s rational and legitimate demands can be met in accordance with the law and due procedures. (3) We need to improve the mechanism for preventing and handling social problems and disputes, and for resolving disputes through the well-coordinated and combined use of multiple means. We will improve the system for coordinating people’s mediation, administrative mediation, and judicial mediation. We need to refine the arbitration system and ensure that improves the system for administrative adjudication. (4) We will intensify efforts to strengthen the comprehensive maintenance of law and order, and implement the system of holding leaders responsible for work in this area.

1.2.4.6. Part 6: Strengthening efforts to develop a rule-of-law workforce. This mainly includes: First, innovation of concept and basic ideas—To comprehensively advance the law-based governance of the country, we must channel great energy into strengthening the political integrity, professional competence, and ethical standards of the rule-of-law workforce, and developing a workforce that is devoted to the socialist rule of law and loyal to the Party, the country, the people, and the law, and thus provide firm organizational and human resource guarantees for more quickly developing a socialist rule-of-law country.

Second, building a workforce of highly competent rule-of-law professionals. (1) We will strengthen the workforce of people working in legislation, administrative enforcement of law, and the judiciary by giving top priority to strengthening their political integrity. We will open channels for the legislature, the law enforcement authorities, and the judiciary to transfer their officials and personnel among themselves, and to give a place to eligible officials and personnel from other sectors. (2) We will increase the levels of regularization, specialization, and professionalization among rule-of-law professionals, and improve their professional qualities and competence. We will improve the system for certifying legal professionals and the standardized national qualification exam system for the legal profession, and establish a unified pre-job training system for legal career professionals. We will put in place a system for recruiting eligible lawyers and legal experts into the ranks of legislators, judges, and public procurators; keep open channels through which qualified demobilized officers become professionals; and build a more standardized and convenient mechanism for recruiting law graduates. (3) We will establish a process for selecting judges and public procurators level by level.

Third, strengthening the workforce of legal service workers. (1) We need to improve the professional qualities of lawyers and refine the mechanisms for protecting them at work. (2) Public sector lawyers will be put in place at all Party and government offices at all levels and people’s organizations, and businesses may put in place corporate lawyers. (3) Efforts will be made to develop a workforce of public notaries, community-level legal service workers, and people’s mediators, and impetus will be given to building a workforce of legal service volunteers.

Fourth, making innovations in the mechanisms for training rule-oflaw talents. (1) We need to ensure that the Marxist thinking on law and the theory of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics prevail in legal education and research at institutions of higher learning and centers for research. Research on basic legal theory will be strengthened; complete systems of theories, academic subjects, and curriculums for socialist science of law with Chinese characteristics will be developed; and national unified core textbooks for law students will be complied and put into use across the country as well as included as a compulsory subject for China Judicial Exam candidates. More work needs to be done to include the theory of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics in our textbooks, bring it into our classrooms, and make it a way of thinking for our students, thereby cultivating cohorts of talented professionals for today and for the future who are proficient in and adhere to the system of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics. Efforts will be made to train more rule-of-law talents who have a good command of international laws, rules, and regulations, and are adept at handling foreign-related legal affairs. (2) The mechanisms for transferring personnel from judicial, procuratorial, and public security bodies to law schools and research institutes and vice versa will be improved, and programs allowing for institutions of higher learning and rule-of-law departments to hire each other’s staff will be put into place. This work will focus on training a contingent of highly competent legal scholars and experts who have a firm political standing, a thorough knowledge and understanding of legal theory, and a good understanding of the conditions of the Chinese context, and it will also focus on training high caliber academic leaders, outstanding teachers, and both full-time and part-time teachers.

1.2.4.7. Part 7: Strengthening and improving the Party’s leadership over efforts to comprehensively advance law-based governance of the country. This mainly includes: First, innovation of concepts and basic ideas—Leadership by the Party provides the most fundamental guarantee for comprehensively advancing the law-based governance of China and accelerating the development of a socialist rule-of-law country. We must strengthen and improve the Party’s leadership over work pertaining to rule of law, and uphold it throughout the whole process of comprehensively advancing the law-based governance of the country.

Second, remaining committed to the law-based exercise of state power. (1) Officials at all levels need to serve the law with reverence, remain ever mindful not to cross or challenge the line of the law, and set a good example in observing and working in accordance with the law. They must not exercise power in any way that is contrary to the law, and it is even more imperative that they do not override the law with their own arbitrary fiats, place their own power above the law, or bend the law for personal gain. (2) We need to improve the institutions and work mechanisms by which the Party exercises leadership over the law-based governance of China, and improve the work mechanisms and procedures by which the Party formulates principles, policies, and plans for the lawbased governance of the country. We need to improve the mechanisms by which Party committees make decisions in accordance with the law, make the most of the respective advantages of Party policies and state laws, and increase the connectivity and interplay between them. Party committees need to be regularly briefed by judicial and procuratorial bodies and public security organs on their work, and plan an exemplary role in promoting judicial impartiality and upholding the authority of the law. Principal Party and government leaders should assume the main responsibility for the work of advancing the rule of law. (3) Party organizations and members and officials within people’s congresses, governments, committees of the CPPCC, courts, and procuratorates need to resolutely implement the Party’s theories, line, principles, and policies, and follow the decisions and plans of their Party committees. (4) Political and legal affairs committees are organizations under Party committees, through which the latter exercise leadership over judicial, procuratorial, and public security work. These committees must have an ongoing presence. Party organizations within judicial and procuratorial bodies and public security organs should develop a sound system of reporting major issues to the Party committees at the next level up.

Third, strengthening the construction of Party regulations and institutions. (1) We need to improve the systems and mechanisms for formulating Party regulations, step up efforts to record, review, and interpret them, and create a complete system of Party regulations and institutions. We need to work hard to integrate and coordinate Party regulations with state laws, and improve the implementation of Party regulations. (2) Party discipline and regulations should expect more of Party members than the law, and both Party organizations at all levels and Party members and officials must not only play an exemplary role in abiding by state laws, but also set stricter standards for themselves by keeping in line with Party regulations and discipline. (3) We must draw on discipline and the law to oppose formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance and overcome tendencies toward engagement in them, and create stringent permanent mechanisms for preventing them from recurring. We must, in accordance with the law and discipline and without showing any leniency, be resolute in investigating every instance of corruption and punishing those who behave corruptly.

Fourth, developing the ability of Party members and officials to think in terms of rule of law and work in accordance with the law. We need to make legal compliance and working in accordance with the law important components of the performance assessment of officials, so that when officials are equally qualified in all other aspects, those who are well versed in the rule of law and better able to work in accordance with the law will be given priority when promotions are considered.

Fifth, increasing the level of the rule of law in community-level governance. We need to strengthen the community-level institutions for the rule of law; strengthen the competence of community-level rule-of-law workers; establish rule-of-law work mechanisms with the focus of the work and main efforts shifted closer to the community; improve rule-of-law infrastructure and equipment at the community level; and encourage rule-of-law officials to work at the community level.

Sixth, intensifying our efforts to practice law-based, strict governance of the military. (1) The Party’s absolute leadership is at the heart of and fundamental to law-based governance of the armed forces. We need to make innovations in and develop the theory and practice of lawbased governance of the military, build a sound Chinese-style rule-of-law system in the military, and increase the level of the rule of law in the development of national defense and the armed forces. (2) We need to adhere to actively and steadily advancing the reform of national defense and the armed forces on the track of the rule of law, deepen the reform in the leadership, the structure of forces, and the policies and systems of the armed forces, and speed up the improvement and development of the socialist military system with Chinese characteristics. (3) We need to improve the system of military laws and regulations that meet the requirements of modern army building and operations, strictly regulate the authority and procedures for military laws and regulations, and include all military normative documents in the scope of the review. (4) We must intensify the enforcement of military statutes and regulations, clearly define responsibilities for it, improve the system relating to it as well as the mechanisms for ensuring supervision over it, implement a strict accountability system, and drive forward with the law-based governance of the military. (5) We need to improve the legal affairs system within the military and set up sound institutions for this work in leading military bodies. We need to establish a system of legal advisors on military affairs, provide legal advisors for leading military bodies at all levels, and improve the system for legal consultation on major military decisions and operations. We need to reform the system of military discipline inspection and supervision. (6) We need to increase the understanding and mastery of the rule of law among military officers and enlisted personnel. We need to intensify theoretical research on the rule of law in the military.

Seventh, safeguarding the practice of “one country, two systems” and promoting the reunification of China according to law. We need to use the rule of law to consolidate and deepen the peaceful development of relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, and push forward with the peaceful reunification of China. We need to protect the rights and interests of the compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan in accordance with the law.

Eighth, improving the work concerning international and foreignrelated legislation. We need to improve the system of foreign-related laws and regulations, and build a new open economy. We need to actively participate in formulating international rules, ensure that China has a greater say and greater influence in international legal affairs; and use legal means to safeguard China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests. We need to provide better foreign-related legal services, increase international judicial cooperation, improve China’s system for judicial assistance, and expand the coverage of China’s international judicial assistance. We need to strengthen international cooperation in fighting corruption, actively participate in international cooperation on law enforcement and security, and work together with other countries to crack down on terrorists, ethnic separatists, religious extremists, drug traffickers, smugglers, and transnational organized crime.

2.Achievements Made in Practicing Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics

The rule-of-law marks the development of political civilization into a new high historical stage, and is the crystallization of human wisdom, aspired to and pursued by people of all countries. In the great practice of leading the people in winning the revolution and achieving victory in socialist construction and reform, in the course of the historical development of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics, the CPC attaches great importance to developing the rule of law, and has profoundly summed up the successful experiences China has gained and the profound lessons it has learned in developing socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics. The CPC has made law-based governance of the country the basic policy by which the Party leads the people in governing the country, and the law-based exercise of state power, the basic approach it takes to governing the country; it actively makes theoretical innovations, institutional reforms, and practical development in socialist rule of law in accordance with rule-of-law thinking and approaches, and has made historic achievements that attract worldwide attention in all major aspects of the construction of the rule-of-law.

2.1.Setting Law-Based Governance of the Country as the Basic Policy for Governing the Country

For the first time in 1997, the 15th National Congress of the CPC established the principle of governing the country according to law as the Party’s basic policy by which the Party leads the people in governing the country, clearly defined the goal of building a socialist country ruled by law as the goal of developing socialist democracy, and realized the fundamental transformation from “legal construction” to the goal of “rule of law”, bringing the building of a socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics into a new starting point.

The 16th National Congress of the CPC explicitly proposed that the development of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics must adhere to the principle of integrating leadership by the Party, the position of the people as masters of the country, and law-based governance of the country, and made clear the right development path in advancing law-base governance of the country and building the rule of law under socialist conditions.

The 17th and 18th National Congress of the CPC continued to hold high the banner of the socialist rule of law, and comprehensively promoted the implementation of the basic policy of governing the country according to law from all aspects, including a well-conceived approach taken to legislation, strict law enforcement, judicial justice administered impartially, and the law being observed by all of the people.

Law-based governance of the country means that the people, under the leadership of the Party, administer state affairs, manage economic and cultural undertakings, and manage social affairs through various channels and forms in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and laws to ensure that all tasks of the country are conducted according to law, and gradually realize the institutionalization and codification of socialist democracy. Governing the country by law is practicing democracy and the rule of law, and opposing autocracy and rule by people. It means governing the power and officials according to law, respecting and safeguarding human rights, and bringing benefits to the people.

Law-based governance of China upholds the following principles: ensuring the people’s sovereignty, upholding the supremacy of the Constitution and laws, respecting and safeguarding human rights, exercising state power according to law, legislating effectively and democratically, administering according to law, implementing judicial impartiality, and strengthening supervision on regulating and constraining the exercise of the public power. Under the Chinese constitutional framework and the context of the rule of law, law-based governance of China includes six basic elements: (1) The leading core of governing the country according to law is the CPC. The leadership of the Party is a natural requisite for advancing law-based governance of China and a fundamental guarantee for comprehensively implementing this basic policy as well. (2) The people hold the principal position in governing the country according to law. The people, instead of government officials, leaders, and organs, are the actors who provide the source of strength for the law-based governance of China. Governing the country by law is by no means ruling the people by law, and under no circumstances can the people be treated as the object of governing by law. (3) The object of governing the country according to law is the conduct and activities of government organs and officials who administer state and social affairs and economic and cultural undertakings on behalf of the people, i.e. the governance of the country and administration of government. A public power without supervision and restriction is bound to produce corruption. So the most fundamental for governing the country according to law is governing the authorities, the government officials and leaders, according to law to prevent public power from being abused and corrupted, and to guarantee that public power should be used to serve the people. (4) The basis for governing the country according to law is the Constitution and the laws that reflect the unity of the Party’s propositions and the will of the people. Governing the country according to law is the rule of good laws, and good laws embody justice and fairness, reflect the common will of the CPC and the people, and benefit economic and social development and the well-being of the people. Governing the country according to law is based on good laws. (5) The approach of governing the country according to law is management, governance, necessary incentives, penalties, etc. (6) The purpose of governing the country according to law is to ensure that all activities of the Party and the nation are conducted in accordance with law; to institutionalize and legalize socialist democracy so that such institutions and laws will not be changed by leaders or changes in their opinions and attentions; to effectively protect the citizens’ civil rights and fundamental freedoms according to law; to regulate strictly by law public power of government organs; and to build China into a prosperous, democratic, and civilized country under the socialist rule of law.

2.2.Establishing the Rule of Law as the Basic Approach to Governing the Country

The rule of law is a concept of rich cultural connotations and realistic political notions. At the theoretical level, the rule of law mainly refers to the theories, thoughts, values, awareness, and teachings that govern and administer a country. At the institutional level, the rule of law refers mainly to the principles that generalize the legal system, procedures, and norms based on law. At the operational level, the rule of law mainly refers to the process and status of abiding by legal order and implementing laws.

The 18th National Congress of the CPC made it clear that the rule of law is the basic approach to governing the country. Xi Jinping emphasized that more attention should be paid to giving full play to the rule of law in state administration and social management. This is the Party’s new understanding of the law of socialist revolution, construction, and reform, a new realization of the laws governing the leadership and administration of the CPC, and a new requisite for the Party to lead the people in comprehensively advancing law-based governance according to law. On the one hand, the rule of law calls for the Party to uphold the principles of exercising governance effectively and democratically according to law; constantly improve the Party’s capacity for and adeptness at governance; propose and apply correct theories, lines, guidelines, policies, and tactics; lead the formulation and implementation of the Constitution and laws; and adopt a scientific leadership system and style to mobilize and organize the people to administer state and social affairs, economic and cultural undertakings according to law and effectively govern the Party, the nation, and the military affairs. On the other hand, it demands that the Party should change its approach from mainly relying on campaigns and administrative measures for governing the country and society to governing the country according to the Constitution and laws, from mainly depending on political means and policy measures to adopting the basic approach of the rule of law and the basic policy of law-based governance of the country.

Deng Xiaoping once pointed out that the first thing that the Party committee’s leadership should achieve was to ensure implementation and effectiveness of law. “Before, without a legal system, we acted largely upon policies. But after the law is established, we must act resolutely according to law”.¹³ The Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee stated that exercising state power by law is a basic approach for the Party’s governance under the new historical conditions. To achieve law-based exercise of state power is to keep to law-based governance of the country and the building of a socialist rule-of-law country. The Party must lead legislation, ensure law enforcement, and lead the way in abiding by the law; constantly promote legalization and standardization in the country’s economic, political, cultural, and social life; and guarantee that the Party leads the people in effectively governing the country with rule-of-law concepts, institutions, and procedures.

The establishment of the rule of law as the Party’s basic approach to exercising governance of the country is based on the Party’s practical experience in revolution, construction, and reform, and is a new concept concluded by the Party in leading the construction of the socialist rule of law, advancing law-based governance of the country, and exercising of state power. Its essential requisites are: First, the development of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics and the building of a socialist country ruled by law needs to keep to the organic integration of the Party’s leadership, the people being the masters of the country, and law-based governance of the country. This is the natural requisite and the essential characteristic of comprehensively advancing law-based governance of the country and building a socialist rule-of-law country. Second, the Party 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 so that it truly leads legislation, ensures law enforcement, supports the administration of justice, and takes the lead in abiding by the law. This is the basic content and major task of the Party in exercising governance of the country according to the Constitution and the laws. Third, we must adhere to the principle that everyone is equal before the Constitution and the laws. All organizations or individuals must confine their activities to the areas prescribed by the Constitution and the laws; no organization or individual is allowed to override the law with their own arbitrary fiats, place their own power above the law, or bend the law for personal gain. This is the basic principle and boundary line of abiding by the socialist rule of law. Fourth, the Party must act as the leading core to ensure its exercise of overall leadership and coordinate everyone’s efforts, uphold the basic policy of law-based governance of the country, and the basic approach to law-based exercising of state power. The Party should be adept at helping its propositions become the will of the country through statuary procedures, guiding the candidates it backs to become leaders of the organs of state power through these procedures, and exercising leadership over the state and society through these organs, and supporting the state, administrative, judicial, and procuratorial organs to work independently and in a coordinated manner in accordance with the Constitution and the laws. This is the general requirement and basic method for the Party to exercise governance of the country by applying the basic principle of the rule of law. Fifth, leading officials of Party organizations at all levels and Party members should take the lead in exercising the rule of law and continuously improve the Party’s capability for and adeptness of governing the country according to law, so as to constantly promote the institutionalization and legalization of all state administration activities. Leading officials at all levels should increasingly apply rule-of-law thinking and methods to deepening reforms, promoting development, resolving disputes, and maintaining their abilities to make steady progress to eventually form a rule-of-law environment in which the people consciously observe the law, look to the law if they meet with difficulties, rely on the law to resolve their problems and disputes, and promote all kinds of work on the track of the rule of law. This is the basic quality and governance capability that Party organizations and leading officials at all levels should have under the new situation of governing the country according to law.

Regulating and guaranteeing the performance of the ruling Party’s governance activities and its activities within the Party according to law is an essential requisite for adhering to the organic unity of the Party’s leadership and law-based governance of the country, and for upholding the essential characteristics of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics. In the practice that the Party leads the people to fully implement the basic principle of governing the country according to law, and in the construction process where the Party leads legislation, ensures law enforcement, and takes the lead in observing the law, the Party itself more consciously upholds the principle of governing the country according to and acting within the confines of the Constitution and other laws. It continuously strengthens the building of its regulations and institutions, and incorporates its rules and regulations into the orbit of law-based governance and the rule of law. In May 2013, the first “legislation law” in the history of the CPC to regulate CPC was promulgated, i.e. the Provisions on Formation of Party Rules of the Communist Party of China. At the same time, accompanying this law was the Regulations on Putting on Records Party Regulations and Normative Documents of the Communist Party of China, which stipulates the legislative procedures. In August of the same year, the Decision of the Central Committee of the CPC on Repealing and Announcing the Expiry of a Number of Party Legislations and Normative Documents was released, according to which 300 of the Party’s laws and normative documents formulated since 1978 were annulled and declared invalid, 467 of those remained in force, and 42 would be amended. At the end of 2013, the CPC Central Committee released the Outline of the Five-Year Plan for the Formulation of Regulations within the Central Party (2013–2017). All these have greatly strengthened and standardized the activities for the development of the Party’s rules and regulations, and ensured and promoted the Party’s progress in exercising governance over its members and the country according to law.

2.3.Keeping to the People-Oriented Principle, and Respecting and Safeguarding Human Rights

Human rights are the rights that people enjoy as human beings. Human rights include not only individual rights but also collective rights, and not only civil and political rights but also economic, social, and cultural rights. As a developing country, China gives the highest priority to the people’s rights to subsistence and development. In China, the core principle to advance human rights is to guarantee the equal participation and development of all members of the society.

Adhering to the people-oriented principle and respecting and safeguarding human rights is the bounden duty of the socialist rule of law and the important task of comprehensively promoting the governance of the country according to law. China attaches great importance to respecting and safeguarding human rights. In its course of exploring the socialist path with Chinese characteristics, China not only respects the universal human rights principle, but also opens up a path of human rights development with Chinese characteristics based on the fundamental realities of the country. The 1982 Constitution highlighted the guarantee of the basic rights for citizens and shifted the provision about the “basic rights and obligations of citizens” from the third chapter of the 1954 Constitution to the second chapter, a more prominent position, and the number of the related articles also increased from more than 10 to more than 20. In 1991, the Chinese government released its first white paper on human rights. For the first time in 1997, respecting and guaranteeing human rights was written into the report of the Party’s 15th National Congress. The 2004 constitutional amendment incorporated the provision of “the state’s respect for and protection of human rights” into the Constitution as a constitutional provision, providing the development of human rights with a solid foundation at the constitutional level. The incorporation of “state’s respect for and protection of human rights” into the Constitution marks China’s efforts of holding high the banner of human rights and actively promoting human rights, and embodies the important features of the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics.

As a country that has written laws, to safeguard the full realization of human rights, China not only incorporates human rights into the Constitution, but also works hard on bringing into effect the people’s civil, political, economic, cultural, and social rights through legislation, law enforcement, and justice institutions and measures. China’s guarantee of human rights through legislation is mainly realized by constitutionalizing, legalizing, and regulating the content and appeals of human rights to make them enter the national legal protection system and become the objects of constitutional protection according to the Constitution. This thus provides basic conditions of and important foundations for the realization of human rights. The administrative law enforcement in protecting human rights is realized mainly through better performance of statutory duties and responsibilities by administrative organs at all levels, stringent administration of government according to law, and strict enforcement of laws and regulations. This thus ensures that all human rights stipulated in the Constitution can be executed, and every citizen can enjoy the specific rights and interests that constitute socialist human rights. The judicial protection of human rights is an indispensable remedy and the last line of defense in the realization of human rights. It has a unique and important position and role in China’s human rights guarantee system.

Xi Jinping pointed out that China must guarantee that all the citizens can enjoy rights in accordance with the law, that all kinds of rights of the citizens such as personal rights, property rights, and basic political rights must be protected from infringement, that all economic, cultural, and social rights of the citizens must be implemented, that the fundamental interests of the people must be protected, and that the people’s desire for and pursuit of a better life must be safeguarded.

To respect and protect human rights and ensure that all citizens enjoy a wide range of rights in accordance with the law, China not only stipulates in the Constitution the basic rights and freedoms enjoyed by citizens but also details the civil rights and their protection in laws and regulations. China not only protects by substantive law citizens to fully enjoy their substantive rights, but also stipulates the procedural rights of citizens in procedural law, which offers procedural law protection for citizens to enjoy their substantive rights. Chinese citizens not only enjoy domestic human rights stipulated in the constitutional law, but also enjoy a wide range of international human rights included in international human rights conventions as ratified by China.

From 1978 to 2011, China enacted nearly 160 laws and regulations concerning the protection of human rights. These include: first, laws and regulations on the protection of economic, social, and cultural rights, including Labor Law, Employment Promotion Law, Labor Contract Law, Work Safety Law, Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Law, Trade Union Law, Compulsory Education Law, Staff Paid Leave Regulations, Regulations on Prohibition of the Use of Child Labor, and so on; second, laws and regulations on the protection of civil and political rights like General Principles of the Civil Law, Criminal Law, State Compensation Law, Consumer Compensation Law, Inheritance Law, Property Law, Tort Liability Law, and Marriage Law; third, laws and regulations on the protection of special groups’ rights including Marriage Law, Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women, Law on the Protection of Minors, Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, Law on the Protection of the Handicapped, Health Law and Regulations on Labor and Welfare Protection for Women Workers; fourth, laws and regulations on human rights protection in the judicial field, including Criminal Procedure Law, Prison Law, Civil Procedure Law, Administrative Litigation Law, State Compensation Law, and Lawyers’ Law; finally, laws and regulations on the protection of environmental rights and other aspects, including environmental protection law, water pollution control law, and so on.

China has actively ratified international human rights conventions and protects the broad rights of its citizens in accordance with international human rights laws. Up to now, China has ratified 27 international human rights conventions, including the United Nation’s International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. In addition, China also recognized 14 international labor conventions ratified by the Kuomintang government (1930–1947) in 1984 and signed the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October 1998. Till now, China has established a set of legal systems on the protection of human rights that take the Constitution as the core and other laws and administrative regulations as its main body.

In order to better implement the Constitution and other laws and promote the development of the human rights cause, China released the National Action Plan on Human Rights (2009–2010) in April 2009. This is the first time for China to formulate its national planning on the theme of human rights. It is a historic breakthrough and can be regarded as a milestone in the development of China’s human rights cause. Based on the successful completion of the first phase of the human rights action plan and the experiences gained, China released the new National Plan of Action for Human Rights (2012–2015) in June 2012, proposing its mission statement, roadmap, and timetable for achieving the phased goals of exercising full respect and protection of human rights in China.

The Resolution on Certain Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform in China, released in the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC, made a reform plan on how to perfect the judicial guarantee system for human rights in eight important aspects, including further standardizing the system of sealing-up, sequestrating, freezing, handling assets involved in legal cases, improving the mechanisms for preventing and correcting misstatements and the accountability system, gradually reducing the number of charges applying to death penalty, abolishing the system of reeducation through labor, improving the community correction system, perfecting the national judicial aid system, improving the legal aid system, and perfecting the lawyer system. These contents and requirements are important guidelines for continuously improving China’s judicial guarantee system for human rights.

2.4.Establishment of the Legal System with Chinese Characteristics as Scheduled

The formation of a socialist legal system to realize that there are laws to abide by is the key task for building the rule of law in China in the new era and is also one of the basic objectives of China’s legislation in the new era.

In 1982, for the first time, the work report of the Fifth Session of the Fifth NPC explicitly stated: “Legislation must proceed from the actual situation in our country and gradually establish an independent legal system with Chinese characteristics”.

In 1987, the report of the 13th CPC National Congress announced to the world: “China’s effort on building a socialist democracy and legal system is gradually developing. A socialist legal system based on the Constitution has been basically formed”.

In March 1988, the first session of the Seventh NPC pointed out: “The significant progress made in the legislative work in the past 5 years has made it no longer practicable for China to go on without laws for the political, economic, and social life of the country. There are laws to follow. The socialist legal system based on the Constitution has been initially formed”.

In 1993, in order to deepen the reform in economic structure, and establish a socialist market economy, the CPC Central Committee stated in its Decision on Some Issues Concerning the Establishment of a Socialist Market Economic Structure that “the objective of the legal system construction is to speed up the economic legislation, further improve the civil, commercial, and criminal laws, and laws on state institutions and administration management, and initially establish a legal system that is adapted to the socialist market economy by the end of this century”.

In 1994, the Second Session of the Eighth NPC Standing Committee proposed: “In accordance with the constitutional requirements, the Standing Committee takes economic legislation as its first task and strives to form a framework for a socialist market economic law system during the current tenure”.

In 1997, the work report of the Fifth meeting of the Standing Committee of the Eighth NPC concluded: The Standing Committee “pays close attention to legislation and takes an important step towards establishing a legal system for the socialist market economy … The legal framework for the socialist market economy has begun to take shape”.

In 1997, while establishing the basic policy of governing the country according to law, the 15th National Congress of the CPC set the goal of completing the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics by the year 2010.

The formation of a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics spanning from 1997 to 2010 and the realization of this legislative goal in these 13 years can be broadly divided into three periods:

The period of the Ninth NPC (1998–2003), in which “the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics takes shape”. The “taking shape” here refers to the legal system, based on the Constitution, taking as the core the basic laws in civil, criminal, economic, administrative and litigation, and other aspects, with different levels of laws, administrative regulations, and local laws and regulations as the content, is initially formed. In March 2003, Li Peng pointed out in his work report: “On the basis of the previous work, all the legal branches that form the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics have been established with unremitting efforts. The major laws in each legal branch have been basically formulated; together with the administrative regulations formulated by the State Council and the local laws and regulations formulated by local people’s congresses, the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics with the Constitution as its core has been basically formed”.

The period of the 10th NPC (2003–2008), in which “a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics is basically formed”. The “basically formed” here refers to the formulation and revision of the supportive, legally urgent, and favorably conditioned laws in every legal branch on the basis of “taking shape”. In March 2008, Wu Bangguo pointed out: On the basis of the legislative work done by the NPC and its standing committees in the past few years and through the unremitting efforts of the 10th NPC and its standing committees, at present … all the legal branches that constitute the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristic are available now, and the basic and major laws and supporting regulations in each legal department have been formulated. The socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics has been basically formed, and all aspects of the country’s economic, political, cultural and social life have basically had laws to abide by”.¹⁴

The period from the 11th NPC (2008–2013) to 2010, in which “a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics is established”. The “established” here means that the legal branches covering all aspects of social relations are well-established and the basic and major laws of various legal branches have been formulated. The corresponding administrative laws and local laws and regulations are relatively complete. And the legal system is in general scientific and consistent.

The socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics is an organic integration of the related laws of the Constitution, civil and commercial laws, administrative laws, economic laws, social laws, criminal laws, litigation and non-litigation procedural laws, and other legal branches, with the Constitution in the supreme place, the laws as the main body, and administrative and local regulations as the major components.

Since New China was founded, and particularly since the policy of reform and opening-up was introduced in 1978, China has made remarkable achievements in its legislation work. By the end of August 2011, the Chinese legislature had enacted 243 effective laws, including the current Constitution, over 720 administrative regulations, over 9,200 local regulations, and over 780 autonomous regulations and separate regulations had put in place a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics, which is based on the conditions and reality of China, meets the needs of reform, opening-up, and the socialist modernization drive, and reflects the will of the CPC and the Chinese people. This legal system, headed by the Constitution, with laws related to the Constitution, civil and commercial laws, and several other branches as the mainstay, and consisting of laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, and other tiers of legal provisions, ensures that there are laws to abide by in the economic, political, cultural, and social development, as well as in ecological civilization building.

The Chinese legal system is currently composed of three tiers and seven branches. As China’s fundamental law, the Constitution assumes the commanding position in the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics. The Constitution has supreme legal authority in the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics. All laws and administrative and local regulations must be made in accordance with the Constitution and follow its basic principles, and must not contravene the Constitution.

The Chinese legal system has three levels: First, the law, including basic laws and other laws formulated and explained by the NPC and its standing committee. Second, administrative laws and regulations, formulated by the State Council in accordance with the Constitution and other laws. Third, local laws and regulations, mainly formulated by people’s congresses and their standing committees at provincial and autonomous regional and municipal levels. The people’s congresses and their standing committees of the larger cities may, in the light of the specific local conditions and actual needs, formulate local regulations, provided that they do not contradict the Constitution, laws, administrative regulations, and local regulations of their respective provinces or autonomous regions. Moreover, they shall submit such regulations to the standing committees of the people’s congresses of the provinces or autonomous regions for approval before implementation. The people’s congresses of the ethnic autonomous areas have the power to formulate autonomous regulations and separate regulations on the basis of the political, economic, and cultural characteristics of the local ethnic group(s). Where certain provisions of the laws and administrative regulations are concerned, adaptations may be made to the autonomous regulations and separate regulations, but such adaptations may not contradict the basic principles of the laws and administrative regulations. However, no adaptation may be made to the provisions of the Constitution and the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy, or the provisions in other laws and administrative regulations that are specially formulated to govern the ethnic autonomous areas. The autonomous regulations and separate regulations of the autonomous regions shall be submitted to the Standing Committee of the NPC for approval before they go into effect. The autonomous regulations and separate regulations of the autonomous prefectures or counties shall be submitted to the standing committees of the people’s congresses of the relevant provinces, autonomous regions, or municipalities directly under the central government for approval before they go into effect. The people’s congresses and their standing committees in the provinces and cities where special economic zones are located may, upon authorization by the NPC and its Standing Committee and in the light of specific local conditions and actual needs, formulate regulations in accordance with provisions of the Constitution and basic principles of the laws and administrative regulations, and enforce them within the limits of the special economic zones.

The legal system in China is currently composed of seven departments: (1) Laws related to the Constitution. The laws related to the Constitution are the collection of legal norms supporting the Constitution and directly guaranteeing its enforcement and the operation of state power. China has enacted 38 laws related to the Constitution, as well as a number of administrative and local regulations. (2) Civil and commercial laws. Civil laws adjust property and personal relationships between civil subjects with equal status, that is, between citizens, between legal persons, and between citizens and legal persons, and follow the principles of equal status between civil subjects, autonomy of will, fairness, honesty and credibility, and other basic principles. Commercial laws adjust commercial relationships between business subjects. By the end of August 2011, China had promulgated 33 civil and commercial laws, as well as a large number of administrative and local regulations concerning commercial activities. (3) Administrative laws. They regulate the relationships between administrative authorities and subjects of administration because of administrative activities. By the end of August 2011, China had enacted 79 administrative laws and a large number of administrative and local regulations regulating administrative power. (4) Economic Law. Economic laws are a collection of laws and regulations which adjust social and economic relations arising from the state’s intervening in, and managing and regulating, economic activities for the society’s overall interests. By the end of August 2011, China had formulated 60 economic laws and a large number of related administrative and local regulations. (5) Social law. China’s social laws are the collection of laws and regulations with respect to the adjustment of labor relations, social security, social welfare, and protection of the rights and interests of special groups. By the end of August 2011, China had enacted 18 laws in this particular field and a large number of administrative and local regulations to regulate labor relations and social security. (6) Criminal Law. This is the law that defines crimes and penalties. By the end of August 2011, China had enacted the Criminal Law and eight amendments to it, as well as decisions on punishing fraudulent purchase of foreign exchange, evading foreign exchange control, and illegal trade in foreign exchange, plus nine legal interpretations on the Criminal Law. (7) Litigation and Non-litigation Procedure Laws. These are laws giving standard solutions to various litigation and non-litigation activities arising from social disputes. China now has enacted in the fields of litigation and non-litigation procedure laws including Criminal Procedure Law, Civil Procedure Law, Administrative Procedure Law, Special Maritime Procedure Law, Arbitration Law, People’s Mediation Law, Notarization Law, and Extradition Law.¹⁵

The socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics is a legal foundation for socialism with Chinese characteristics to retain its nature, a legal reflection of the innovative practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and a legal guarantee for the prosperity of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Its establishment is an important milestone in China’s development of socialist democracy and the legal system, and showcases the great achievements of reform, opening-up, and the socialist modernization drive. It is of great realistic and far-reaching historic significance. To comprehensively advance law-based governance of the country, China continues to step up its legislative work, promote democratic and effective legislation, improve the quality of legislation, and constantly improve and develop the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics.

2.5.Steady Development in Building a Rule-of-Law Government

Administration according to law is an important part of governing the country according to law. The construction of a law-based government according to law is an important part of the construction of the rule of law in China. To build a government ruled by law is to adhere to the principle of administration according to law and to build all levels of government into a legal government, a power-limited government, a normative government, a law-abiding government, and a responsible government.

In 1997, the 15th National Congress of the CPC put forward a basic policy of governing the country according to law and demanded that all government agencies must administer according to law. In order to implement the basic policy of governing the country according to law and to promote the administration according to law, in 1999 the State Council promulgated the Decision on Comprehensively Promoting the Administration. According to Law. The Rules of Work of the State Council, revised in 2003, formally established the law-based administration as one of the three basic norms governing the work of the government, and clearly stipulated that the core of law-based administration was to regulate administrative power. In 2004, the State Council promulgated the Outline for Carrying out the Implementation of Law-based Administration in an All-round Way, setting the goal of building a government ruled by law. In 2010, the State Council issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of a Government Ruled by Law, which made comprehensive deployment of and put forward the general requirement for the further promotion of law-based administration and development of a government rule by law in new conditions. It attached great importance to the construction of a rule-of-law government, the enhancement of the awareness about and ability of the rule of law among officials, especially leaders of administrative organs, improvement of institutional construction, and lawbased democratic decision-making using effective approaches. It also upheld building transparency into the work of government across the board, strengthen administrative supervision and accountability, resolve social contradictions and conflicts according to law, and strengthen organizational leadership, supervision and inspection.

The 18th CPC National Congress stressed the need to “promote administration in accordance with the law and earnestly realize strict, normative, just, and civilized law enforcement”. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee further clearly pointed out that to push forward the rule of law in the country, China must make coordinated efforts to simultaneously develop the law-based governance of the country, the law-based exercise of state power, 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. We must deepen the reform of the administrative law enforcement system, integrate law enforcement power, and promote comprehensive law enforcement to spare no effort to solve the overlapping of power, responsibilities, and law enforcement, thus establishing a law enforcement system which integrates power and responsibility with authority and efficiency. We must reduce the level of administrative law enforcement and strengthen grass-roots law enforcement forces in key areas such as food and pharmaceuticals, production safety, environmental protection, labor and social security, and maritime islands; must streamline the law enforcement system of urban management and enhance the level of law enforcement and service. We will improve the procedures for administrative law enforcement, standardize the exercise of discretionary powers in law enforcement, strengthen the supervision over administrative law enforcement, fully implement the responsibility system for administrative law enforcement, and ensure that funds for law enforcement will be financed by fiscal support, so as to strictly regulate impartial and civilized law enforcement.

Since the reform and opening-up for more than 30 years, especially since the 15th CPC National Congress, China’s law-based administration of government has been carried out in depth, and the construction of the government under the rule of law has progressed steadily and made great achievements.

In terms of administrative legislation, from 1979 to September 2014, the State Council submitted a total of nearly 200 legal bills to the NPC and its Standing Committee and enacted over 720 administrative regulations. The State Council departments and local governments with legislative power had formulated over 26,000 regulations. Among them, the Administrative Procedure Law formulated in 1989 stipulated that the court can examine the legality of specific administrative behaviors, and as a result the number of administrative litigation cases increased a lot, and “the people suing the government” was established as a procedure system paralleling with criminal proceedings and civil proceedings. The State Compensation Law promulgated in 1994 stipulated that authorities whose illegal administrative behaviors may have caused losses to the parties concerned should bear the liability for compensation, which provided a legal basis for government responsibility and the protection of human rights. The Administrative Penalties Law promulgated in 1996 regulated the right to set administrative penalties and procedures for administrative punishment, and established relative regulations for administrative penalties. The Administrative Review Law promulgated in 1999 stipulated that parties concerned may apply for review to higher authorities for specific administrative behaviors. The Administrative Licensing Law of 2003 clarified the creation and scope of administrative licensing, regulated the administrative licensing of the government, and promoted the reform of the administrative examination and approval system. Administrative legislation has built up basic laws in the fields of Administrative Organization Law, Administrative Act Law, and Administrative Relief Law, and has made relative administrative laws and regulations in the fields of national defense, diplomacy, customs, personnel, civil affairs, overseas Chinese affairs, public security, safety, education, science and technology, culture, sports, tourism, urban management, environmental protection, medicine and health, food safety, and so on. A relatively complete administrative legal system was formed, which embodied the administrative legal concept that regulated and restricted administrative power. Power comes from the people and should be used to serve the people. Therefore, we must strengthen the restriction and supervision of power through legislation and ensure that power is used by the people and for people’s benefit.

In 1999, the State Council held a meeting to comprehensively promote the law-based administration of government and passed the Decision of the State Council on Promoting Administration According to Law, and crystallized requirements for law-based administration. In March 2004, the State Council promulgated the Outline for the Implementation of Lawbased Administration in an All-round Way (the Outline), and made an overall layout for the law-based administration and the construction of a government ruled by law. The Outline sets forth clear requirements for strict administrative enforcement of law, including legal administration, rational administration, proper administrative procedures, efficient and convenient for people, honest and trustworthy administration, unity of powers and responsibilities. The Outline stipulated that measures should be taken to streamline the administrative law enforcement system, speed up the construction of administrative procedures, and standardize administrative law enforcement. The main measures included: deepening the reform of the administrative law enforcement system to speed up the establishment of a system of administrative law enforcement with clearly defined powers and responsibilities, standardized behaviors, effective supervision, and strong guarantee, exercising the power and performing duties in strict compliance with legal procedures, improving the check and evaluation system of the administrative law enforcement filing, establishing and improving the qualification system for administrative law enforcement, and strengthening the clean-up and supervision of red-head documents. During the three decades since the reform and opening-up, especially in the past 5 years, administrative review and administrative litigation has developed very fast, and promoted the development of the disinterested and efficient government. Administrative review and litigation are important mechanisms to provide legal remedies and correct administrative mistakes for administrative behaviors in China. According to the requirements of the Outline, to build a government ruled by law, we must promote the reform of the administrative system, improve the quality of system construction, streamline the law enforcement system, and enhance the education of the rule of law among law enforcement officials. This is also the direction and path to be taken in the construction of a ruleof-law government in the future.

In the process of building a rule-of-law government, we will step up supervision over the abstract administrative actions such as the formulation of laws, regulations, and normative documents. On January 15, 2008, Wen Jiabao signed the Decree of the State Council, promulgated the Decision of the State Council on Repealing Part of Administrative Laws and Regulations, and conducted a comprehensive clean-up of 655 administrative regulations by the end of 2006. Altogether 49 administrative laws and regulations which were replaced by new laws or administrative regulations were abolished, and 43 administrative regulations were declared invalid because their working life ended or the adjustment objects disappeared. On the basis of strengthening the review of laws, rules, and regulations, the State Council further perfected the system for filing the regulatory and normative documents at levels of provincial, municipal, county, and township governments, and promoted law-based administration at all levels of local governments. From March 2003 to the end of 2007, the State Council conducted a review of 8,402 local laws and regulations, autonomous regulations, separate regulations, local government regulations, and department regulations of the State Council, and dealt with 323 rules and regulations in which problems exist. The State Council formulated the Regulations for the Implementation of the Administrative Review Law and actively explored the reform of the administrative review system and strengthened the capacity-building of administrative review staff at all levels. Since the implementation of the Administrative Review Law in 1999, over 80,000 administrative disputes have been resolved annually through administrative review across the country.

2.6.Constantly Improving the Judicial System

China attaches great importance to the reform and improvement of its judicial system. The 15th National Congress of the CPC put forward the reform task of “promoting judicial reform and ensuring that judicial organs are in a position to exercise adjudicative and procuratorial powers independently and impartially in a judicial system”. The 16th, 17th, and 18th National Congresses of the CPC all deployed reforms to continuously improve the judicial system.

Judicial system reform, as an important part of China’s political system reform, has undergone a process of gradual progress and deepening. In the 1990s, China implemented judicial reforms that focused on strengthening functions of court trials, expanding the number of public trials, strengthening lawyers’ defense, and building a team of professional judges and prosecutors. Starting from 2004, China launched across the country a large-scale judicial reform that was uniformly planned in deployment and organized in implementation. Starting from the problems that the public had expressed its strong concern about and the key links that could affect judicial justice, according to the requirements of impartially administrated justice and strict law enforcement, following the general law and characteristics of justice, China worked hard on improving the organization structure, division of powers, and management system of judicial organs, and on improving the judicial system in which powers and responsibilities were clearly specified, mutually coordinated, and restrained, and which was efficiently operated. In 2008, China started a new round of judicial reforms. The reforms, taking into account the people’s judicial need, took the maintenance of the common interests of the people as the foundation, the promotion of social harmony as the main line, and the strengthening of checks on and overseeing of power as the key points. They focused on the major issues affecting the judicial administration and reducing the judicial ability to solve the systemic, institutional, and safeguarding obstacles in the judicial system, and proposed specific reform measures from aspects of optimizing the allocation of judicial functions and powers, implementing the criminal policy of combining leniency with rigidity, and strengthening the judicial team building and the judicial funds guarantee mechanism. China’s judicial system has been continuously improved, and it has won the public’s recognition and support through several rounds of judicial reforms.

First, optimize the allocation of judicial functions and powers and promote impartial and honest judicial administration, including: reform and improve the implementation system of civil administrative cases, and establish a mechanism with unified management and mutually checked separate powers to effectively solve the difficulty in implementation; comprehensively advance the reform that a procuratorate’s right of arresting the abuse-of-power criminals should be checked by its immediate higher level to ensure that higher-level procuratorates could check and oversee its lower levels in arresting criminals, which helps to prevent wrong arrests and the false conduct of “replacing detection with arrest”; work to establish a guiding system for criminal cases to unify the standards in legal judgment, which helps to reduce the phenomenon of “criminals in the same case yet getting different judgments” and develop the system into a visible impartial frame of reference of justice; strengthen prosecutors’ legal supervision on links like criminal registration and investigation, criminal justice, regulatory sites, and alternative implementation of penalties, so that legal supervision would be more effective; rationalize the relationship between courts of higher level and that of lower level, reform the system of trial committees and collegial panels, and independently judge according to law to ensure judicial justice; build transparency into the judiciary, prosecution, police affairs, and prisoners’ affairs, and realize complete transparency in filing information, the law enforcement information, and the process and results of handling a case to ensure that the judicial power is exercised with transparency; improve the system of people’s assessors, and establish that of people’s supervisors, and continuously advance the work of the board for commutation and parole so that the public can participate in the administration of justice, and the supervisors can be supervised; strengthen the democratic supervision and improve and gradually complete the democratic supervision mechanism for non-communists in judicial work; gradually establish the mechanism for online expression of public opinion and polling to further ensure the people’s right to know, participation right, expression right, and supervision right. Through the multi-channeled reforms, the judicial system of China has been advanced and the judicial openness and legal and democratic supervision enhanced. Consequently, the reforms have built transparency into judicial activities and effectively helped the judicial organs to carry out duties and functions prescribed to them by law while refraining from performing functions and duties that are not authorized by law, and helped to solve such problems that the public shows strong concern about. They have also helped to ensure that law is enforced in a strict, impartial, civil, and honest manner, and improves the judicial credibility.

Second, implement the criminal policy of combining leniency with rigidity to promote social harmony and stability, including: revise and improve important laws such as the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law in order to adjust the constitutional elements of and statuary sentences for crimes severely jeopardizing the social order and improve the penalty structure, which helps to improve the ability to punish serious crimes, and strengthen judicial guarantees for human rights; establish rules for the exclusion of illegal evidence, and a system of audio and video recording during the entire process of interrogating the suspects; implement defense counsel’s right of meeting with criminal suspects, right of reading files, right of investigation and evidence collection to safeguard the lawful rights and interests of criminal suspects and defendants; carry out the death penalty policy of “killing less and cautiously killing people”, reduce the charges of death penalty, strictly limit and carefully apply the death penalty. The Criminal Law Amendment (8) promulgated in 2011 abolished the death penalty for 13 economic non-violent crimes, accounting for 19.1% of the total death penalties and stipulated that the death penalty should generally not apply to those who have reached the age of 75 at the trial, and set up a system of restricting the reprieve of the execution of the death penalty, which will create legal and institutional conditions for the gradual reduction of the application of death penalty. On October 27, 2014, the draft Criminal Law Amendment (9) was submitted to the Standing Committee of the NPC for consideration. Based on the principle of reducing the application of the death penalty, the Amendment (9) proposed to abolish the death penalty for nine crimes: arms and ammunition smuggling, nuclear materials smuggling, counterfeit money smuggling, counterfeiting money, fund-raising fraud, crime of organizing prostitution, crime of enforcing prostitution, obstructing the execution of military positions, and crime of spreading rumors during the war; explore the establishment of a system of criminal reconciliation, work hard to repair the social relations destroyed by crimes and reduce social confrontation; improve the system of community correction to help criminals actively integrate into society and reduce the rate of recidivism. By the end of June 2012, 1,054,000 criminals were accepted into community correctional institutions and 587,000 were released after correction. The rate of recidivism among those who were released from community correctional institutions after correction was about 0.2%; improve the system of handling juvenile criminal cases leniently, establish conditional non-prosecution system and criminal record seal system to help minor offenders who have committed but petty crimes return to society smoothly, which helps to promote social harmony. As of July 2011, there had been 2,331 juvenile courts across the country. From 2002 to 2011, the rate of juvenile delinquency in China basically remained at 1–2%.

Third, improve the management system of the political and legal team and enhance the level of law enforcement and justice. Implement a standardized national qualification examination system for judicial professionals, and incorporate the exam for new judges, prosecutors, and lawyers and notary qualification into the national judicial exam. From 2002 to the end of 2011, a total of nearly 500,000 people passed the national judicial examination and obtained legal professional qualifications. Measures were also taken to establish law enforcement qualification examination for police officers. In 2011, more than 1.73 million police officers attended the first law enforcement qualification examination, of which 1.69 million passed the examination. By improving the recruitment and cultivation system of police officers, 65,000 people were recruited into police or law colleges or universities, and after graduation they were largely allocated to the grass-roots political and legal units, thus improving the quality of frontline police officers. Through the reform of the national judicial examination system, the reserve of legal professionals in the central and western regions and ethnic regions has been increased, alleviating the shortage of grass-roots judges and prosecutors. The law enforcement force at the grass-roots level has been stabilized by resolving the special difficulties of judges, prosecutors, people’s police, and judicial administrators. At the same time, all political and legal units had continually improved the vocational training system and actively innovated the training concepts, methods, and means so as to bring training closer to law enforcement and meet the requirements of law enforcement. In the past 5 years, over 1.5 million judges, 750,000 prosecutors, and 6 million police officers received training in the country, which has greatly raised the police officers’ ability to handle cases and serve the people.

By improving the lawyers’ system, the lawyers’ professional orientation as socialist legal workers with Chinese characteristics has been clearly defined, and the legal practice rights of lawyers were protected, which helps to promote healthy development of the lawyers’ profession. As of the end of 2011, there were 18,200 law firms in China and 215,000 lawyers. In 2011, the number of lawyers serving as legal advisers reached a total of 392,000 across the country, an increase of 24.6% over 2008; 2.31 million lawsuits were handled, realizing an increase of 17.7% compared with that in 2008; more than 625,000 non-litigation legal matters were handled, an increase of 17% over 2008; nearly 845,000 legal aid projects were contracted, an increase of 54.5% over 2008.

Fourth, solve the funding shortage in political and legal teams and guarantee their performing of duties in accordance with the law. The new round of reforms of the judicial system and mechanisms put forward a new funding guarantee system of “clearly defining responsibilities, categorizing burdens, disengaging income from payments, and fully covering the payments” to replace the old one of “funds grading and management at different levels” to improve financial security at central and provincial level, and to establish a mechanism for the normal growth of public funds; set standards for the infrastructure construction of the judiciary and guidelines for the equipment configuration in judicial organs, improve office conditions and conditions for handling cases, and improve the level of informationization and scientificity so as to provide a solid material guarantee for enhancing the judicial capacity; increase investment in political and legal infrastructure and equipment construction and adhere to the principle of “shifting focus, funding guarantees, and investments down to the lower level” to give priority to improving the basic political and legal infrastructure and equipment construction at the grassroots level. These reforms effectively solved the long-standing tensions of political–legal organs caused by lack of hands and funds and outdated equipment and other difficulties, which greatly enhanced the overall working capacity of the grassroots political and legal units and encouraged the morale of police officers. In recent years, grassroots police stations captured 40% of the total number of fugitives arrested each year by public security organs throughout the country. Police officers at the grassroots police stations accounted for about 70% of the total number of police dispatched by public security agencies. The number of people arrested and prosecuted in the past 3 years at the grassroots procuratorates accounted for 95% of the total handled across the country over the same period. In the past 3.5 years, grassroots courts handled and executed 89.28% of the total cases handled and enforced throughout the country. During the “11th Five-Year Plan”, the judicial institutes handled 3.6 million mediation and dispute settlement cases, and helped grassroots governments handle 3.134 million social conflicts and disputes.

2.7.Significantly Enhancing the Concept of the Rule of Law Among the Public

Great importance is attached to popularizing legal knowledge among the public, establishing the concept of the rule of law in the whole society to eventually form a social atmosphere that is law-abiding, law-observing, and law-using, a society that is not willing to, will not, and dare not breach the law, and a good environment in which people tend to act in accordance with law, to find a legal solution to problems, to solve problems and resolve conflicts by using law. These are the basic conditions for and an important symbol of the success of the rule of law in China. Since the reform and opening-up, the rule of law has profoundly changed China’s society and Chinese’ notions as well. The ideas of democracy, rule of law, freedom, human rights, fairness, and justice are imperceptibly affecting people’s values and integrating with people’s life style. The concept of the rule of law in society has obviously been strengthened.

Since 1985, the Standing Committee of the NPC has passed six decisions that popularize legal knowledge among the people, and has also successively implemented six Five-Year Plans for popularizing law. During the first law popularizing Five-Year Plan period, more than 700 million citizens studied preliminary legal knowledge. In the period of the second Five-Year Plan, there were 96 industries drawing up law popularizing plans, organized to study more than 200 specialized laws and regulations. During the third Five-Year Plan, 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities carried out law-based governance in combination with the law popularizing movement, and 95% of prefecture-level cities, 87% of counties (districts and cities), and 75% of grassroots units carried out their work according to law. During the fourth Five-Year Plan, 850 million citizens accepted various forms of education on the rule of law. During the fifth Five-Year Plan, over 24,600 leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial level in the country and 415,300 leading cadres at the prefectural and municipal levels attended lectures on China’s legal system. Leading cadres’ concept and ability of governance and decision-making according to law was enhanced. The popularization of law in the sixth Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) had been promoted in an all-round way, the laws and regulations of the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics with the Constitution as the core had been widely publicized and popularized, and thus the administrative level of the rule of law in the whole society had been further improved. The publicity and education of the rule of law has played an important role in promoting the governing of the country according to law and speeding up the building of a socialist country ruled by law.

The object of law knowledge popularization is all citizens, with emphasis on national civil servants. For the ordinary citizens, the purpose of popularizing legal knowledge is not only to let every citizen know, respect, and abide by law, but more importantly, let the citizens learn to use legal weapons to safeguard their own legitimate rights and interests. For national officials, they are required to firmly establish the concept of the rule of law, and work more consciously according to law. As for the whole society, the promotion of a rule-of-law spirit, the cultivation of a rule-of-law culture, and a good social atmosphere are essential. During the fifth law popularization Five-Year Plan, we strengthened the training and examination on legal knowledge in evaluating the qualification of civil servants. More than 42 million civil servants were trained in the country. More than 27 million legal knowledge examinations were held among civil servants. More than 98% of civil servants attended annual legal knowledge studies. More than 33,500 legal knowledge drills were held for business management personnel with more than 2.9 million trainees. More than 51,300 lectures and seminars were held with over 6.2 million participants. More than 12 million cadres from rural “two committees” were trained and 156 million rural migrant workers took part in training, which raised farmers’ legal awareness.

China attaches great importance to the integration of popularization of legal knowledge and law-based administration and extensively carries out the policy of “governing the province (cities, counties, townships, and villages) according to law”, launching activities for the establishment of rule-of-law cities and counties (cities and districts), integrating the rule of law in different places, departments, and units in everyday work and citizens’ production and life, and striving to increase the level of the rule of law in society and realizing the combination of law knowledge and its application. By the end of 2010, 26 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government), 241 cities (prefectures, states, and leagues) and 1,856 counties (cities and districts) had all conducted activities concerning the establishment and construction of the rule of law. In all provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) leading groups were established at different levels for publicity of and education on legal knowledge, with Party committees and governments leaders or division leaders being the group leaders. Mechanisms of law-based legal knowledge publicity and education were established and improved, which were implemented by governments under the leadership of Party committees and supervision of people’s congresses. In all departments and industries, groups consisting of major leaders or division leaders of the departments and industries were set up for the publicity of and education on legal knowledge to enhance their publicity and education work.

Since 1994, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee has successively held over 100 legal knowledge lectures or group studies, of which nearly 30 were about the construction of the rule of law or involved the content of the rule of law. The Central Political Bureau took the lead in conducting lectures and studies on the rule of law and played a good exemplary role in promoting legal knowledge in society, especially among the public servants in the country, establishing the people’s awareness about the rule of law and strengthening their concept of the rule of law. The NPC Standing Committee, the State Council executive meeting, and the members of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee held a series of studies on the rule of law. Studying legal knowledge in a collective way had developed into a system among the Party organizations and state organs at all levels.

In addition, remarkable achievements have also been made in China’s legal services, legal education, legal studies, legal personnel training, and the establishment of a rule-of-law team.

3.Fundamental Experience of Building the Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics

The building of the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics has witnessed a tortuous development over more than 60 years and has made remarkable achievements that have amazed the world. It has accumulated many valuable experiences.

3.1.Insist on the Leadership of the CPC in the Rule-of-Law Construction

Upholding the leadership of the CPC in the rule-of-law construction is a basic lesson China has learned in developing socialist rule of law in the country for more than 60 years, the essential requirement and fundamental guarantee for the reform and development of the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, as well as the most essential feature and most fundamental guarantee of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics itself. Different from that in the revolutionary years and the early days of the founding of the new China, the CPC has been through many major changes in terms of its central task, the environment it is in, and the team structure of the Party members. These major changes objectively call for the need to strengthen and improve the Party’s leadership and organically integrate the Party’s leadership with law-based governance of the country. Upholding the Party’s leadership in the construction of the rule of law, China needs to improve the Party’s capacity for and adeptness at governance, and also improve the Party’s leadership and governance style. To achieve law-based exercise of state power, the Party has to transform its major governance ways from previously depending largely on the use of orders and administrative means to presently depending largely on the adoption of democratic and rule-of-law means. It has to be ensured that the Party always gives top priority to the overall situation and acts as the leadership core to coordinate all parties. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee proposed that “the need to exercise the Party’s leadership throughout the whole process and in every aspect of the law-based governance of the country is a basic lesson we have learned in developing socialist rule of law in China”. The Party must lead legislative work, ensure law enforcement, support judicial work, and lead the way in abiding by the law. The Party must practically act within the confines of the Constitution and other laws, exercise the state power according to the Constitution, and govern the country according to law. The Party should further “strengthen the unified leadership, deployment, and coordination for promoting the rule of law, improve the Party committees’ decision-making mechanism to be in accordance with the law, exert the respective advantages of policies and laws, and promote the interconnection and interaction of Party policies and state laws”.

3.2.Adhere to the Developmental Path of Socialist Democracy and the Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics

Developing the country based on the country’s reality, starting from its historical and realistic conditions and following the path of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, is another basic experience in China’s construction of the rule of law. The thousands of years of history of human political civilization has repeatedly proven the truth that the legal system a country should adopt and democratic and law-based development it should choose depend on national conditions of this country. The socialist rule of law in China, which is rooted in the vast fertile soil upon which the Chinese nation has survived and developed for thousands of years, and stems from the great practice in which the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people struggle for national independence, the liberation of the people, and the prosperity of the country, is the legal system fit for China’s national conditions and social progress requirements. Compared with capitalist rule of law, socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics is a socialist type of rule of law; compared with the concept of the ideal socialist state and legal system of Marx and Engels, it is a rule of law in the primary stage of socialism. Compared with the rule of law in other socialist countries, like the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries and now countries like Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba, it is a socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics; and compared with the Chinese genealogy of law, traditional Chinese legal system, and legal culture in China’s history, it is a modernized socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, with politicalness, specialness, periodicity, and modernity as its basic features. Sticking to the path of building and developing socialist democracy and the rule of law with Chinese characteristics is an inevitable result of the development of Chinese history and society in the modern era and is the choice of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. It’s necessary to draw on what is good about traditional Chinese legal culture and learn from those practices of other countries that are useful in developing the rule of law, but we’ll never indiscriminately copy foreign ideas about or models of the rule of law.

3.3.Attach Great Importance to the Strategic Position and Role of the Rule of Law in Modernization of the Country

As the crystallization of political civilization created by mankind, the rule of law has played an indispensable and increasingly important role in our economic and social development. In the 30 years since the founding of the new China, the rule of law in China might have been well developed. However, it experienced setbacks. The basic reason for such setbacks and losses is the failure to correctly understand the important position of the rule of law in the construction of the nation. After the reform and openingup, the Party and the state have attached great importance to the construction of the rule of law. The 15th National Congress of the CPC defined for the first time in Chinese history the principle of governing the country according to law as the basic policy for the Party to lead the people in governing the country and put forward the historical mission of “governing the country according to law and building a socialist country ruled by law”. Governing the country by law is not only a fundamental task of socialist modernization, but also an important part of building a socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics. It is an important guarantee for realizing the goal of socialist modernization.

3.4.Strengthen the Rule-of-Law Culture and Strive to Improve the Awareness about Socialist Rule of Law across the Nation

Due to the influence by feudal legal remnants and the ultra-leftist trend after the founding of new China, the Chinese people’s awareness about the rule of law and their concept of the rule of law still need to be enhanced and improved. “Law cannot act on its own”. People are the main body of social activities. Establishing a sound socialist rule of law cannot be done without the improvement of legal awareness of the people across the country. Therefore, we must change our concept: change from the concept of rule of man to that of the rule of law, from the concept of privilege to that of equality, from the notion of legal nothingness to belief in law and order, and from obligation-based concept to that combining rights and obligations. We must further popularize legal knowledge, carry forward the spirit of socialist rule of law, establish the socialist concept of the rule of law, and enhance awareness of studying, respecting, abiding by, and applying the law; we should improve leaders’ ability to apply thinking based on the rule of law and methods to deepening reforms, promoting social development, resolving social conflicts, and maintaining social stability. We’ll work hard to promote the formation of a good legal environment in which people handle affairs in accordance with the law, look to the law if they meet with difficulties, find solutions according to law, resolve conflicts by using law, and do all the work following the track of the rule of law. It is necessary to strengthen the implementation of the Constitution and laws and safeguard the unification, dignity, and authority of the socialist legal system and create a legal environment where people are unwilling to break the law, and will not violate the law or dare not violate the law.

3.5.Adhere to the Coordinated Development of the Rule of Law and Economic and Social Development, and Ensure the Smooth Progress of Reforms Guided and Guaranteed by the Rule of Law

The rule of law is a regulator of social relations and a distributor of social interests. The construction of the rule of law should be coordinated with the economic and social development. To meet the demand of the economic and social development, it’s necessary to promulgate, amend, abolish, and interpret laws in a timely manner to reform and improve the socialist rule of law; on the other hand, the economic and social developments also need to be guided, standardized, and promoted in order to provide a sound legal environment for economic, political, social, cultural, and ecological construction, and to lay a solid foundation for the rule of law in resolving conflicts, settling disputes, cracking down crimes, maintaining stability, and realizing social fairness and justice.

A well-developed relationship between reform and the rule of law is both an essential requirement of reform and opening-up and an important mission of promoting the rule of law. In the early 1990s, China put forward the basic policy that “we must coordinate our decisions on reform with our legislative work” and also the legislative principle that “we must coordinate our legislative work with our decisions on reform” so as to provide good legal protection for reform and opening-up and economic and social development. Under the new background of advancing the rule of law in China, Xi Jinping emphasized: “All major reforms must be based on law. In the entire reform process, we must attach great importance to using the rule-of-law thinking and methods, give full play to the leading and promoting effects of the rule of law, promote the coordination of relevant legislative work, and ensure the promotion of reform on the track of the rule of law”. Adhering to the principle that “major reform should be based on law” is not only a concept in the reform of socialist legal civilization, but also the guiding notion of and basic principle for properly handling the relationship between the reform and the rule of law.

3.6.Adhere to the People-Oriented Principle, and Respect and Protect Human Rights

The essence of the socialist democracy of the people determines that safeguarding the people’s long-term and fundamental interests is the historical mission of the socialist rule of law. Respecting and guaranteeing human rights is an essential requirement for the people being masters of the country and for protecting the interest of the people. Upholding people-oriented development is an internal requirement of developing a socialist democracy and building a socialist country under the rule of law. The work report of the 17th National Congress of the CPC states that we: “Respect and guarantee human rights and ensure equal participation and development of all social members according to law”. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee emphasized that “China respects and safeguards human rights, and works hard to improve the judicial guarantee system for human rights. It takes effective measures to standardize the judicial procedures of seizing, sequestrating, freezing, and handling assets involved in cases. It also improves the mechanism for effectively preventing and immediately acting to redress cases in which people have been falsely accused, or unjust or erroneous rulings have been made, makes great efforts to prevent at the source the practices of extorting a confession by torture or illegally obtaining evidence, and reduces gradually the number of crimes subject to the death penalty”. All these declarations and provisions not only set the direction for the development of the rule of law and the reform of the judicial system in China, but also provided guidelines for the building of human rights in China. Only by adhering to the people-oriented principle and effectively respecting and protecting human rights can the enthusiasm of the people for development be mobilized to the maximum, and social harmony can be achieved on the basis of giving full play to social creativity.

3.7.Uphold the Organic Unity of the Party’s Leadership, the People Being Masters of the Country, and Governing the Country According to Law

The very foundation of developing a socialist democracy, deepening the reform of the political system, improving the socialist legal system, comprehensively promoting the rule-of-law governance of the country, and accelerating the building of a socialist rule-of-law country is to uphold the organic unity of the Party’s leadership, the people being masters of the country, and the principle of governing the country according to law. Upholding the Party’s leadership is fundamental to the socialist rule of law; it’s the foundation and lifeblood of both the Party and the country, affects the interests and well-being of the people of China across all ethnic groups, and is integral to China’s efforts to comprehensively advance the law-based governance of the country. Leadership by the Party is consistent with socialist rule of law: Socialist rule of law must uphold the Party’s leadership, while the Party’s leadership must rely on the socialist rule of law. Only through the law-based governance of China and the rule of law under the leadership of the Party can China ensure that the people fully act as masters of the country, and can it steadily increase the rule of law in the affairs of the country and the lives of the people. The leadership of the Party, the people being masters of the country, and governing the country according to law are a closely integrated whole. To uphold the organic unity of the three is a basic guideline that must be followed in strengthening the democratic rule of law with Chinese characteristics. The work report of the 18th National 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.