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In the public pledge making process, adequate discussions are normally carried out.The charters of self-government must be discussed and approved at village meetings or assemblies, and one or several officials of the town house also frequently take part in the discussion. In principle, all village pacts and specific regulations must be adopted at the village meeting.The village representative meeting may also create specific regulations, but in such cases, it is necessary to supply greater opportunities for expression of views or criticism by the public.Especially after the 1998 issuance of the notice to make countryside management more transparent and democratic, the institutional and face-to-face public sphere in the peasant society broadened.
As for implementation of these contracts, spontaneous discussions on justice or fairness, and the emerging public opinion, play an important role.For example, the village pact prescribing the contractual relations concerning production responsibility of collective-owned land may change if objected to, if the specific changes are accepted after thorough discussion among the villagers.In fact, as provided in all charters of village self-governance, one of the duties of the village representatives and village committee members is just to listen to these kinds of objections and other views or suggestions.Of course, the negotiating position of an individual may be very limited, and minority opinions may be ignored.But when many villagers begin to consider the status quo of contracted land distribution unfair, the pressure of popular or public opinion will increase and strengthen, thus the village committee has to respond and to adjust the contractual relations.Like the example of Ancun, it is imbalances in economic distribution and burden that are the catalytic agents in promoting the development from individual claims to public will.
III. The Interplay Between Mass Sentiment, Popular Indignation,
and Social Justice
For contractual ordering, the most important problem is how to keep the spontaneous norms effective.This is also related to the Durkheimian problem regarding the non-contractual basis for contractual relations.In the Chinese practice, we can find 1) a kind of mechanism running by the principles of law-abiding psychology based on the participatory democracy annexed obedience, 2) the idea of preventive law based on sanction of public opinion and public indignation, 3) informal executive bodies, and 4) negotiated ordering in the shadow of governmental compulsory means.Obviously, public discussions are able to play an important role for this mechanism and some very complicated relationship of mutual promotion can be found there among the factors of mass sentiment, popular indignation, public opinion, sense of reflective equilibrium and social justice.
Public Opinion as Mobilization Device
There are two significant aspects for considering the interrelations and interaction between state and mass discussions.One is the mobilization device of social and political resource, which is composed of psychology based on feelings of the masses.The other is the standard for judging legitimacy and effect of state law that stems from popular and public opinion concerning social justice. Here let us analyze the first aspect, which is public opinion as device for mobilization.
In contemporary China, it is the aspect of mobilization device that has been emphasized strongly for a long period of time.In particular, the public opinion concerning adjudication repeatedly made use of the emotional discourse about victim-centered justice and the public indignation against a public enemy, to play the role of social mobilization.Therefore, the adjudications of political or social significance took the form of public accusation meeting or public trial assembly more often than not.In other words, during a long period of time, the judicial proceedings in China worked to form a sympathetic order through educational communication, mass sentiment and popular opinion, besides dispute resolving and trial hearing.This feature of adjudication was manifested the most clearly and extremely during the period of “Cultural Revolution” (1966-76) when it was known as “popular justice.”According to the deliberation records, judgments, rulings, notices and publications from that period, basic features of the public opinion as a mobilization device may be summarized up as follows.
The Power of Speech in Popular Justice
1. Regardless of it being a civil or criminal case, the judicial organ would always print and deliver a report on details of the case, after collecting evidence and ascertaining the facts, to the grass-root masses within a certain area (e.g. local community of the work place or dwelling place of a suspect or defendant, or the place where an important legal act took place), and organize specific “mass forums (qunzhong zuotanhui)” there to discuss preliminary plans of dispute resolution or judgment and offer suggestions.This kind of “moot-styled” popular justice put forward judicial slogans such as “putting all cards of the case on the table for the people,” “ enlarging the results of a trial to depict justice,” “putting an end, once and for all, to disputes by changing our world outlook,” “resolution should be a product of repeated discussions and persuasions,” and so on.
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