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
