Gourage needed to build China a country under rule of law

The governmental departments and the public have reached a consensus on issues including reforms of the reeducation through labor, the petition letters and visits related to complaints and lawsuits, the use of judicial powers and the household registration system after discussing many times. Now, the most important thing is to take action.

The contents of reforms are in highly keeping with the aspiration of the public. The 18th CPC National Congress proposed to seize the opportunity and use greater political courage and wisdom to deepen the reforms in important areas. Each of the four focuses of reforms set at the national conference on political and legal work is a hard nut, but it is also a breakthrough in doing practical things.

Firstly, the reeducation through labor has not yet been included in the criminal proceedings system, so it is often used by some government officials to revenge on people who make a complaint about them. The case of Tang Hui that happened in Yongzhou of Hunan province in 2012 pushed the abolition of the system of reeducation through labor to the teeth of the storm. Therefore, listing the system of reeducation through labor in the law is just a reflection of the legalization of national judicial work.

Secondly, the long-standing abuse of household registration system, which exerts negative impacts on education, social security and other issues, caused severance of society. People expect substantial measures to be taken in terms of unifying the urban and rural household registration system to use residence permits to replace the control of domicile, separating it with welfare system, and they can bid farewell to the era of discrimination in different household registers, thus promoting the fairness of public service.

Thirdly, petition letters and visits refer to a channel for the officials to keep close contact with the masses. However, petition letters and visits involving complaints and lawsuits cannot be handled as normal ones. Only when the judicial decision is more effective than instructions of the leaders, will the public not present petition letters and appeal the higher authorities for help. The judicial independence must be guaranteed, so that the country can be ruled by law.

Fourthly, the reforms and deepening of judicial power and system will optimize the judicial rights allocation, strengthen supervision and administration, ensure the independent execution of judicial and procuratorial power and combine fighting crimes with protection of human rights. It will integrally implement the new criminal procedure law to put an end to the extortion of a confession by torturing and effectively solve the problem of hard filing of a case, preventing from magnification of the so-called sensitive cases involving environmental conflicts, demolition and people suing the officials and making administration of justice the final solution of conflicts. Only when the administration of justice is authoritative, it can assume corresponding social responsibilities.

It needs the spirit of cracking a hard nut to build China into a country ruled by law rather than neglect the reforms due to involving complicated interests and heavy resistance. The government departments and the public have reached a consensus about the reforms. Now, the most important is to take action. The government is expected to take action as soon as possible and announce the timetable to make the public truly feel fairness and justice. Only in this way can the wish of ruling China by law be realized, and the public will also have faith in the law.