China.org.cn | December 10, 2020
Cqcb.com:
General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed at the central conference on work related to overall law-based governance that the legal popularization work should pay attention to effectiveness and be well-directed, and law-related education for the youth should be enhanced in particular, and that the legal governance awareness and knowledge of the whole nation should be improved continuously. So, how is the situation of legal popularization and law-based governance currently progressing in China? What is the plan for the future? Thank you.
Tang Yijun:
It is a great deed in the human history of rule of law to carry out legal popularization among the whole nation in such a big country with a 1.4 billion population, and to put the law into the hands of the people and make them have faith in the law. This fully embodies the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and is a major measure for strengthening prevention, addressing the root causes of issues and advancing law-based governance. In nearly 35 years, the work of legal popularization among the whole nation has recorded historical achievements. Especially, after the 18th CPC National Congress, legal awareness has been remarkably enhanced in the whole of society, and the level of law-based social governance has noticeably improved, which can be demonstrated in five aspects:
First, the Party's comprehensive leadership on legal popularization has been significantly enhanced. The CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core attaches great importance to legal popularization work. General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over group study sessions of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee many times with the rule of law being the theme, setting an example for the Party and the society. The CPC Central Committee made scientific top-level design for legal popularization work and built the general framework for legal popularization in the seventh five-year public legal education plan period (2016-2020). After the establishment of the Commission for Law-based Governance under the CPC Central Committee, a law observance and education coordination team was set up under the Commission, with which the Party further enhanced the overall planning, coordination and implementation of law observance and education efforts.
Second, the legal popularization work has been shaped to meet the requirements of the overall situation and to serve the general public, achieving remarkable results. Focusing on the core tasks of the Party and the state and the real problems and difficulties that concern the people, we continued to carry out activities with the theme of "legal popularization serving the overall situation". Suddenly faced with the COVID-19 epidemic, we carried out special activities to promote the rule of law with the theme of "rule of law in epidemic prevention and control", and organized the compilation of epidemic prevention and control related e-books and posters for free public download and use. We continued to deepen the integration of poverty alleviation with education and with the rule of law, and carried out a special action for poverty alleviation with the help of the rule of law to ensure legal popularization and law-based governance can play an important role in the fight against poverty. We also organized the compilation of a series of books for legal popularization to help the fight against poverty. We made efforts to resolve outstanding legal issues faced by people in need, offering strong support for winning the fight against poverty through the rule of law.
Third, we have broadly implemented a responsibility system for legal popularization in which who enforces the law should also popularize the law. By implementing this system, we advanced innovation in the concepts, systems and practices of legal popularization throughout the nation. The National Legal Publicity Office compiled and published two batches of lists of legal popularization responsibilities for more than 50 central Party and state departments, seeking to have relevant departments actively encourage public participation, listen to opinions widely and make timely releases in the process of drafting and finalizing laws, regulations, rules and judicial interpretations. We have embedded the legal popularization work in the whole process of law enforcement. We inform private parties of the legal grounds for administrative law enforcement as well as legal relief measures. The judicial authorities explain and publicize the law through the whole process of handling various cases, taking full use of legal documents for interpreting the law and conducting legal popularization work through live streaming court trials and other means to offer a vivid, directly perceived experience.
Fourth, we have deepened efforts to promote rule of law in rural areas. We strengthened the promotion of rule of law in rural areas as the groundwork for implementing the rural revitalization strategy and progressing overall law-based governance. We deepened efforts in building national model villages and communities of democracy and rule of law, and raised the level of law-based rural governance. We have now reviewed all of the designated national model villages and communities of democracy and rule of law and kept 2,899 of them, and we are undertaking dynamic management to ensure their quality. We launched a program to enhance legal literacy in rural areas and made efforts to guide farmers and the officials and the general public of rural areas to abide by the law and resort to legal approaches when encountering problems, in a bid to help pave the "last mile" of law-based governance.
Fifth, rule of law education has been incorporated into the national education system. We have worked with the Ministry of Education and formulated an outline of rule of law education for young people to further promote this topic in this segment of the population. At present, courses are offered at primary and secondary schools and the knowledge on the rule of law now has a certain weight in the college entrance examination. Since 2016, a course on ethics and the rule of law has been in place across the nation's compulsory education and special booklets on the subject have been offered for the sixth- and eighth-grade students. Local authorities are giving full play to the role of the "second classroom" and guiding students to participate in rule of law practices. Most of the nation's primary and secondary schools have been equipped with deputy principals and counselors of the rule of law, with 15 of the nation's provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities having realized full coverage.
At the central conference on work related to overall law-based governance, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that we should make more efforts in legal education in a targeted and effective way, and strengthen the subject among young people in particular so as to raise public awareness and knowledge of the rule of law. This identifies the pressing problems of public legal education and determines a direction for us to be innovative in this work. We will thoroughly study and implement the principles from General Secretary Xi Jinping's major addresses, focus on promoting public legal education in a more targeted and effective way, further carry out the legal education in a classified, orderly and effective manner with a focus on young people in the coming eighth five-year legal education program, and endeavor to improve public knowledge of the rule of law so as to promote the all-around development of this aspect by staying true to our shared ideals, blazing a new trail and improving its quality and efficiency.
First, we will carry out legal education in a targeted way. We will respond to the public need and implement targeted legal education to shift legal education from a "flooding" approach to the public to "dripping" in regard to different targets. We will apply new media and new technologies to intelligent legal education, making the internet — the biggest variable — the biggest increment in the innovative development of the legal education.
Second, we will strengthen educational integration. We will further improve and implement the Outline of the Rule of Law Education for Young People, promote the integration of Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law into school education, strengthen the training of teachers for rule of law education, deepen efforts in running law-based schools, and foster young people's awareness of rules and rule of law habits through education and guide, practice and institutional guarantees.
Third, we will improve people's knowledge of the rule of law. We will make it a strategic priority of enhancing the country's soft power to raise this public knowledge and launch campaigns to improve their awareness of the rule of law, encourage the whole society to respect, abide by and use the law, and make the rule of law a social consensus and basic norm. Thank you.