****************
Following is the speech by the Secretary for Justice, Ms Elsie Leung at the Law Conference on "Development of Law and Legal System of the People's Republic of China" today (Saturday):
President Wong, Dear Friends from the Legal Community, Honourable Guests,
I am honoured to be here today to officiate at this conference on the "Development of Law and Legal System of the People's Republic of China (PRC)", which is held in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. It is an invaluable opportunity for me to meet with so many distinguished members of the legal profession from both the Mainland and Hong Kong, to discuss the development of the legal system of our country.
Half a century has passed since the founding of the PRC in 1949. During these 50 years, our country has attained considerable accomplishments in all aspects, leading the Chinese people proudly into the 21st Century.
The road to establishing law and order and the legal system in our country has had many twists and turns. At the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the leading cadres summed up the experience and lessons learnt since the founding of the country, and stressed especially on "strengthening the socialist legal system so that there are laws to be observed, laws must be observed and strictly enforced, and lawbreakers must be dealt with". Under these guidelines, the development of the contemporary legal system has taken an important step forward.
Since the implementation of the "open-door" policy in 1978, the National People's Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee have all along given top priority to legislative work. From 1 January 1991 to 31 October 1995, the NPC and its Standing Committee examined and endorsed 109 laws and decisions on law-related issues, accounting for one-third of the legislation enacted since the beginning of the reform and the adoption of the "open-door" policy. Such a large number of legislative enactments demonstrated support for the dictum of having "laws to be observed".
The Fifteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China also put forward the target of "ruling the country according to the law and building a socialist state with the rule of law", and proclaimed a progression from "rule by law" to "rule of law".
This target was formally adopted in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China in March this year. Article 5(1) of the amended Constitution provides that, "The People's Republic of China shall run the country according to law and shall build a socialist state with the rule of law". Developing the rule of law has thus become the basic policy of our country.
Over the past decade, our country has achieved a lot in legislative work. Legal provisions were made in many areas to facilitate the opening up and economic developments of the country, improvement in law enforcement, management of judicial and legal personnel and protection of civil rights.
To facilitate economic developments, a series of important commercial laws and regulations were introduced, e.g. the Guaranty Law, the Law on Commercial Banks, the Company Law and the Arbitration Law. Two important laws were passed by the NPC this year, namely, the Securities Law which came into force on 1 July and the Contract Law which became effective on 1 October. Both laws contain detailed and clear provisions to regulate commercial activities, conclusion of contracts and securities transactions.
On the improvement of law enforcement and management of judicial and legal personnel, the Judges Law, the Procurators Law and the Lawyers Law were introduced. These laws strengthen the regulation and supervision of legal personnel, by ensuring that they meet the professional standards and laying down rules and codes of practice.
Regarding public law, the NPC also passed the State Compensation Law and the Administrative Review Law, to ensure that legal channels are available for citizens to lodge complaints and seek compensation when their personal rights are infringed by the administrative organs, and strengthen internal supervision of administrative organs.
You may be aware that the Chinese Government signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October 1997 and October 1998 respectively. It is indeed an important milestone in the process of developing the rule of law. The reservation clauses of these two Covenants and the implementation of the provisions of the Covenants have far-reaching implications for law-making in the Mainland.
In fact, the NPC had already made significant amendments in 1996 and 1997 to the Criminal Procedure Law and the Criminal Law, which have profound impact on civil rights.
The amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law have enhanced the protection of the victims' rights, ensured that lawyers could provide legal services to the defendants more effectively, substituted "shelter and investigation" by detention with a time limit, improved the mode of trials by allowing both the procurator and defendant to cross-examine and debate in court, and strengthened mutual cooperation and supervision among the public security organs, procuratorial organs and courts in criminal proceedings.
The amended Criminal Law is more consistent and comprehensive. Apart from incorporating systematically a lot of the existing separate criminal regulations and subsidiary provisions into the new Criminal Law, certain concepts have been reformed, including the incorporation of the principle of "everyone is equal before the law", abolition of the system of "analogy", adoption of the system of "crime and punishment being prescribed by law", substitution of the controversial "crime of counter-revolution" with a more clearly-defined "crime of endangering national security". These important amendments have brought greater protection for the basic rights of the citizens.
At the NPC meeting held early this year, Vice Chairman JIANG Chunyun presented a work report, which summed up the legislative and law enforcement work done last year and set out the major tasks for the coming year, which includes -
(1) continuously strengthening legislative work and raising the quality and quantity of legislation;
(2) expanding and improving the mode of supervision, to support and promote administration by law and impartial administration of the law; and
(3) increasing publicity on the legal system, to enhance all citizens' understanding of the legal system and legal awareness.
It is therefore evident that our country's commitment to "ruling the country according to law" is steadfast and pragmatic.
Since the founding of the PRC, the road to establishing the legal system has been twisty. There was a complete collapse of the legal system from 1957 to 1978. The people had suffered too much from lawlessness and had awoken. There is no turning-back in the development of the legal system. Therefore, the future is bound to be positive and progressive, and it shall be an indispensable part of the state policy. I am optimistic about this. Given that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China after the Reunification, we have to understand the legal system of the Mainland and realise the role of the laws of Hong Kong in the concept of "one country, two systems", so that there can be a smooth implementation of the Basic Law.
Advancing into the third Millennium, our country will speed up its modernization process and prepare for the accession to the World Trade Organization. I believe this will be an opportune moment for the legal system of our country to develop further towards international standards. Finally, I hope that through this conference, all of us can have a better understanding of the legal system of our country and explore together the direction for future development.
Thank you.
End/Saturday,October 2, 1999
NNNN