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
