LUO Haocai*

 

It is very timely and necessary for us to hold this seminar in the beautiful Suzhou Campus of Renmin University of China to deeply study and implement the decisions of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, push forward the construction of China’s rule of law and jointly discuss the development of China’s human rights cause. 

 

The 4th Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee just concluded is a very important meeting which was held at the time when China’s goal for comprehensively building China into a comparatively well-off society enters its decisive stage; it is the first time for the CPC to hold the plenary session of the CPC Central Committee with the theme on the governance of the country according to the law, and it is a milestone in the history of New China’s legal development. The 4th Plenary Session deliberated and approved the Decisions of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues for Comprehensively Pushing Forward the Governance of the Country According to the Law (the Decisions). The Decisions is the first decision dedicated to legal construction in the history the CPC and the guideline for the comprehensive promotion of law-based governance of the country under the new situation; it fully embodies CPC’s determination and courage to pursue the rule of law in the governance of the country. The Decisions, which expounds the major issues in the legal construction, is an important guide for both theoretical study and practices. It, therefore, deserves our examination and thorough understanding. 

 

The Decisions points out that the general goals of the governance of the country according to the law are to build the socialist legal systems with Chinese characteristics, to form the complete legal systems, highly efficient legal implementation systems, rigorous legal supervision systems and powerful legal protection systems, and to establish the complete law and regulation systems within the CPC. These wordings are more correct in expression, more profound in comprehension, richer in connotation and wider in range of coverage, meaning a further step forward in China’s legal construction comprehension.

 

The legal construction is after all for the people, and the core of the rule of law is to safeguard human rights. To comprehensively push forward the governance of the country according to the law, it is necessary to stick to people’s principal position, to insist on doing things for people, by relying on people, benefiting people and protecting people, to take the protection of people’s fundamental rights and benefits as the starting point and foothold and to ensure that people can enjoy comprehensive rights and freedom.

 

I think that strengthening the human rights protection work and pushing forward the human rights cause by centering on the socialist legal systems with Chinese characteristics are not only the focuses of our work on studying and implementing the spirits of the 4th Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, but also the main requirements of the Decisions for our human rights workers. Followings are my several understandings:

 

The first is to push forward the process of human rights protection system by centering on forming the complete legal systems. It is necessary to improve human rights legislative system, strengthen the legislation in such key fields as people's livelihood and social security, protect citizens’ various kinds of rights including personal rights, property rights and basic political rights from being infringed, ensure that citizens’ rights in various aspects including economic, cultural and social aspects can be implemented and achieve the overall citizen rights protection according to the law. It is important to strengthen the whole society’s consciousness of respecting and safeguarding human rights, and allow human rights to become people’s habits and the pursuit. [page]

 

The second is to completely implement the content in the constitution that “China respects and protects human rights” by centering on forming a highly effective legal implementation system. It is necessary to improve the legislation implementation and supervision systems, safeguard the dignity of the constitution and ensure the implementation of the constitution. It is important to deeply push forward the administration according to the law, accelerate the construction of the law-based government, deepen the reform of the administrative law-enforcement system, stick to strictly standardize fair and civilized law enforcement, and conscientiously respect and protect the human rights.

 

The third is to strengthen the national power’s restriction and supervision by centering on forming a rigorous legal supervision system. It is necessary to strengthen the system construction of supervision within the CPC, supervision of the people's congress, democratic supervision, administrative supervision, judicial supervision, audit supervision, social supervision and supervision by public opinion, strive to form a scientific and effective power-operation restriction and supervision system, put the power into the system cage and allow the power to better serve the rights, benefit and human rights. 

 

The fourth is to strengthen the human rights’ judicial guarantee by centering on forming .a powerful legal guarantee system Judicial guarantee is the final defense line to protect citizens’ rights and benefits, and ensure social fairness and justice. The focus of strengthening the human rights’ judicial guarantee is to protect the personal and property rights and benefits in proceedings, strengthen litigation rights’ system guarantee, standardize the judicial procedure in dealing with case-related property, improve the supervision over judicial compulsory measures, perfect the judicial administrative system and judicial power’s operation mechanism, improve citizens rights’ relief channels and ways, and earnestly solve the most direct and practical problems of interest which are most concerned by people.

 

The fifth is to strengthen and improve CPC’s leadership in the human rights work by centering on perfecting the laws and regulations system within the CPC. The CPC’s leadership is the fundamental guarantee to comprehensively push forward the governance of the country according to the law and promote the human rights protection. It is important to perfect the legal education and human rights education systems, upgrade CPC members and cadres’ legal thinking and capability of working according to the law, strengthen CPC members and cadres’ human rights consciousness and concept, and fully play CPC’s key roles in the human rights protection.[page]

 

Comprehensively pushing forward the governance of the country according to the law, as the system engineering and a comprehensive and profound revolution in the national governance field, requires us to do the long-term and hard work. It is more necessary for our human rights workers to stick to the governance of the country according to the law, push forward the governance of the country according to the law, make efforts to achieve the legalized human rights work and make contribution to the human rights development and the construction of China’s rule of law. Let’s firmly push forward the human rights work, allow the human rights and the rule of law to advance side by side, and realize the Chinese Dream, namely building China into a powerful country, as soon as possible under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping as the general secretary.

 

*LUO Haocai(罗豪才), professor and president of China Society for Human Rights Studies. The article is his speech delivered at a theoretical seminar titled “China’s Rule of Law and Human Rights” on November 14, 2014.