Rule of law highlighted in handling Bo's case

BEIJING - Chinese central authorities' decision to investigate Bo Xilai's serious discipline violations has won wide support for safeguarding the rule of law as well as the purity of the Party.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee announced a decision Tuesday to suspend Bo's membership of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and the CPC Central Committee as he is suspected of being involved in serious discipline violations, and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC would file the case for investigation.

Chinese police also set up a team to reinvestigate the death of British citizen Neil Heywood in Chongqing on November 15, 2011, which was alleged by Wang Lijun, Chongqing's former police chief who entered, without authorization, the US general consulate in Chengdu on February 6 and stayed there.

According to the reinvestigation results, existing evidence indicated that Heywood died of homicide, of which Bogu Kailai, Bo's wife, and Zhang Xiaojun, an orderly at Bo's home, are highly suspected. The two have been handed over to the judicial departments.

People from different sectors of the Chinese society have since expressed through various channels their support for the CPC Central Committee's decisions, which they said were transparent and based on facts and laws.

The decisions also demonstrate the CPC Central Committee's clear stance, firm resolution and strong confidence in safeguarding the purity of the Party and the rule of law, they said.

The decisions also signal that anyone who violates disciplines or laws will be probed and punished and there are no privileged members in front of Party disciplines nor privileged citizens in front of laws.

The rule of law is considered a foundation of the governance of the CPC and a significant guarantee for realizing the nation's long-term stability. Last year, the country announced that a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics had been basically formed.

While strict discipline is a remarkable feature as well as a significant edge of the CPC, which serves as s key guarantee for the CPC to maintain its purity.

Professor Zhao Bingzhi, dean of the Law School of Beijing Normal University, told Xinhua that the moves showed the Party and government's resolution and ability of handling major incidents in line with laws and disciplines.

"The announcement of the decisions was made at the right time and handled with delicacy, and that's a stance that a modern society under the rule of law should take," he said.

Professor Lin Laifan, with the School of Law of Tsinghua University, also considered it a progress of China's legal and political systems that a senior Party official, his family and staff who broke laws and disciplines were handled in line with laws and facts and through legal procedures.

Analysts here noted that the incident of Wang Lijun, the death of Heywood and serious discipline violations of Bo have drawn huge attention and left a negative impact as rarely seen over the past decades.

Professor Liu Changmin, with the School of Politics and Public Management, China University of Political Science and Law, said the CPC leadership expressed a clear and firm attitude towards fighting corruption and maintaining the purity of the Party through effective actions.

The CPC has repeatedly stressed that resolutely cracking down on and effectively preventing corruption is crucial for the party to gain popular support and ensure its very survival, Liu said, noting that it is therefore a major political task the Party must attend to at all times. If not effectively curbed, corruption will cost the CPC the trust and support of the people, Liu said.

In Bo's case, the general public were informed timely the leadership's decisions and the development of investigation, which showed that the Party attaches great importance to meeting and responding to people's major concerns, Liu said.

It can be considered an implementation of the Party's policy of ensuring people's rights to know, to participate, to express and to supervise, she added.

At a time of profound changes in the world, in China and in the Party, the CPC has realized that it is vital to the country's long-term prosperity and stability that the Party works to enhance its leadership and governance and its ability to resist corruption and degeneration and to withstand risks.

In his speech at a gathering to mark the 90th anniversary of the CPC last July, President Hu Jintao noted that the CPC is facing long-term, complicated and severe tests in governing the country, in implementing reform and opening up and in developing the market economy, as well as tests in the external environment.

And the whole Party is confronted with growing danger of lacking in drive, incompetence, divorce from the people, lacking in initiative, and corruption, he said, adding that it has thus become even more important and urgent than ever before for the Party to police itself and impose strict discipline on its members.

Yan Shuhan, former director of the scientific socialism department with the Party School of CPC Central Committee, told Xinhua that the decisions in handling Bo's case suggested that the CPC paid great attention to improving its governance and worked hard to conduct scientific, democratic, and law-based governance.

"They also indicated that to maintain the advance nature and purity of the Party is not simply in words," Yan said. "The Party has not only got the theories but also implemented them in actual practice, showing zero tolerance towards the offence of laws and disciplines and those who commit such offences."