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The biggest difficulty in constructing China’s legal system is without doubt how the CCP as the sole leading governing party follows the laws and the Constitution. Also, we can see that the Party have declared them many times: There must be laws for people to follow; these laws must be observed; law enforcement must be strict; law-breakers must be dealt with accordingly; and equal before the law .And the most important symbol is that the principal “rule of law” has been added into the Constitution in1999. The sentence “The People’s Republic of China implements law to govern the state and construct the socialist country with rule of law” was added to the Constitution. I think, with economic and legal globalization, to establish ‘rule of law’ continues to be an important agenda for China’s political reform in the near future.
In accordance with the spirit of rule of law, government will change administrative functions, restrict and balance different powers, distinguish different functions of different government branches in market activities. The most important practice is to rebuild the macro-economy adjusting mechanism including those aiming at supervising the overall operation of the financial system.
The functions of the administrative power in China have again been changing. A special phenomenon of the Chinese version of the market economy is that the administrative power, which used to monopolise the main sectors of economic activity, has to be alert to whether there is unfair competition. This situation still gives enterprises, which are closely linked to the administrative power, the privilege of monopolising the market without being subjected to free competition. Under such a circumstance, the antitrust law has to be made by the legislative organ itself, and not by the administrative power or the Executive. In this sphere, the creation of other legal norms needed for the new economic order, is the same. There have also been requests for more due process in the exercise of administrative power. Legislative activities such as the drafting of the administrative enforcement law, licensing law, and law on legislation, and the making of administrative penalty law have been highly concentrated in the mid-1990s. These laws together with the systems of administrative complaint, administrative litigation, and governmental compensation, play an important role in ensuring the principle of administration in accordance with the law.
China’s judicial reform has also been in progress. Many institutions such as judicial review will decide the cases more just and equally. The 1982 Constitution indicates that the people’s courts are required to exercise their judicial authority indenpendencely and are not to be subject to interference by administrative organs, organizations and individuals. Also, the following indicators of independence are discussed in relation to the PRC judiciary: transparency, professionalism, accountability, autonomy and functional review. The institutional stages or levels demonstrating these characteristics may range from the judge, processes of judicial decision-making as well as the judicial organs. Judicial independence is an essential aspect of democratic government following on necessarily from the essential presence of judicial power within the powers of the state; judicial independence allows for a system of mutual checks and balances against the excesses of one branch of government; and judicial independence ensures that judges are free to do justice in their communities.
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