Xi ‘Rule of Law’ Meeting Will Strengthen Communist Party
By Ting Shi
October 16, 2014 12:01 PM EDT 
Photographer: Feng Li/Getty Images
China's President Xi Jinping said at the parliament’s 60th anniversary last month that its powers are constitutionally enshrined and the key to perfecting the system is “unswerving adherence to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party”.
Communist Party leaders gathering for their plenary session in Beijing next week will focus on one theme: bolstering the rule of law, with distinctly Chinese characteristics.
President Xi Jinping, appointed party chief two years ago, has put legal reforms at the top of his agenda as he seeks to institutionalize his anti-corruption campaign and to follow up on the party’s 2013 pledge of a decisive role for the market in the economy. Yet the end result will be that the party will shore up its pre-eminent position, according to academics who specialize in China’s laws.
“For the ruling party, the first concern is the state and society is stable and controllable, then it will start to consider how to improve the ways to control it,” said Professor Ji Weidong, Dean of KoGuan Law School at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It “can clarify power boundaries while maintaining the existing power structure,” he said.
The party meeting comes as protesters inHong Kong demanding open elections have been accused of ignoring the rule of law, foreign companies have said they are being targeted by Chinese criminal and regulatory agencies, and after a yearlong crackdown on rights activism.
More than 350 members of the party’sCentral Committee will likely discuss setting up a new super anti-graft agency, reform of the party’s political and legal affairs commission - formerly headed by detained security supremo Zhou Yongkang - and more powers for the country’s largely ceremonial parliament, according to the academics. The changes will strengthen not constrain the party’s authority, they said.
Rule by Law
The recent life sentence for a Beijing-based economics professor for promoting separatism for Xinjiang is an example of how the law in China is used against criticism perceived to threaten the party-state, and of what rule of law means in China, according to Larry Diamond, a political science professor at Stanford University.
“It is very important to distinguish between the rule of law, rule by law, and the politicized application of laws that ultimately serve and protect the rulers,” said Diamond. “You can’t have a rule of law ‘‘under the leadership’’ of one and only one party, which itself is above the rule of law”.
Xi wants a well-functioning legal system to gain greater central control of China’s provinces and to impose discipline on party officials whose corruption has raised public discontent and social tension, according to Jerome Cohen, a professor of law at New York University who specializes in Chinese law.
Constitution, Charter
He wants “to achieve the party’s will through rule by law, a traditional goal of all China’s millennial central leaders,” said Cohen, who is also a senior fellow for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Genuine rule of law would limit the party’s power, he said.
China ranked 92nd out of 99 countries for constraints on government powers in the World Justice Project’s 2014 Rule of LawIndex. The country is governed both through its constitution, which details the administrative power of the government, and the Communist Party Charter, which enshrines political power.
Zhou, the country’s most powerful law and order official from 2007 to 2012, is expected to be formally expelled from the party at next week’s meeting after a corruption investigation that was made public in July. The party commission he headed “has deeply interfered in the judiciary and made every major judicial decision in the past”, according to Ji fromShanghai Jiao Tong University.
Serious Reflection
The commission’s role needs to be “seriously reflected and re-examined” to end that interference, Law Professor Zhan Zhongle from Peking University said.
It’s “imperative” to reform or even abolish the commission at the local level while strictly redefining its role at the national level, said Xu Xin, professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology’s law school. That might be transformed into a legislative policy coordinating committee, Ji suggested.
Consolidating and centralizing anti-corruption responsibilities, currently scattered among the party’s disciplinary body, prosecutors, authorities in charge of petitions and the national audit office, will also be considered, according to both professor Xu and Ji of Shanghai.
“How to institutionalize and legalize anti-corruption is a key topic at the fourth plenum,” said Xu. “The current practice is on the one hand combating graft while on the other hand harming rule of law.”
Less Arbitrary
Rule of law can be a way to “regulate corruption and make crackdowns appear less arbitrary”, said Chong Ja Ian, an assistant professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. “The types of test cases to watch are when the law may be in tension with the interests of the party,” he said.
The plenum will also likely discuss boosting the role of the National People’s Congress, the country’s legislature which meets once a year. Lawmakers may be empowered to impeach public officials, starting at lower level legislatures, Ji from Shanghai said.
President Xi said at the parliament’s 60th anniversary last month that its powers are constitutionally enshrined and the key to perfecting the system is “unswerving adherence to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party”.
“The fourth plenum discussion will focus on how to accentuate the authority of the constitution, which enshrines the party’s leadership,” said Zhan from Peking University.
Increasingly Savvy
Rule of law in the current Chinese context is the effective implementation of laws and judicial regulations especially at the local level, Ji from Shanghai Jiao Tong University said.
“In China, the discussion of rule of law and judicial independence has to transcend ideology and political systems if it wants to go any further,” he said.
The Chinese public is becoming increasingly savvy over its legal rights and has expressed dissatisfaction with local officials over labor, land, food safetyand environmental pollution issues, said Rosita Dellios, who teaches Chinese policy at Bond University in Australia’s Gold Coast.
“The party seeks to ensure the legal system is strengthened to deal with misuse or neglect of legal processes in place,” she said.
Professionally trained lawyers and judges will be of great help to ordinary people in the day-to-day operations of the courts said Bo Zhiyue, senior research fellow at East Asian Institute of National Universityof Singapore.
“On the other side, China will continue to emphasize the leadership of the party over all systems, including the legal system. The party leadership is at the core,” said Bo. “I don’t think China is making a leap into anything.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Ting Shi in Hong Kong attshi31@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson atrmathieson3@bloomberg.net Douglas Wong, Neil Western
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