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,
