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reforms effectively solved the long-standing tensions of political–legal organs caused by lack of hands and funds and outdated equipment and other difficulties, which greatly enhanced the overall working capacity of the grassroots political and legal units and encouraged the morale of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
