Strengthening democratic legal system

The CPC decided to strengthen the country's democratic legal system during the next five years.

According to the document, developing a democratic political system and building a socialist country with the rule of law will be an important goal of China's socialist modernization drive.

The people's democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the industrial workers' class and based on the alliance of workers and the farmers should be adhered to and improved on, the document said.

The people's congress system, the multi-party co-operation and political consultation system under the CPC leadership and the regional autonomy system should all be adhered to and improved on, the document said.

The political restructuring should further be pushed forward, as well as the building-up of a democratic legal system, it said.

In terms of political restructuring, the document said that legislation and supervision work of the people's congresses should be further enhanced, and relations between deputies and the congresses and their constituents should become closer to ensure a scientific and democratic policy-making.

Democratic elections, democratic policy-making, democratic management and democratic supervision must be implemented across the country to guarantee citizens with far-ranging rights and freedom and to respect and protect human rights, it pledged.

Grassroots governments and autonomy organizations of the masses should be optimized for public participation, and all the regulatory, management affairs of grassroots governments, factories and villages must be open to public supervision.

The building and improvement on the legal system facilitating the socialist market economic operations is the key to China's legal work, it said, noting that property-ownership relations, credit transaction and contract matters under the conditions of a market economy must be covered by law and administered in accordance with law, so as to ensure a sound market order and protect fair competition.

Government work should operate in line with statutory laws while improving the public servants system, with government functionaries held responsible for their conducts and their performances regularly checked. Judiciaries shall be reformed to guarantee their independent rights to prosecution and trials, as well as to ensure justice be served, said the document.

Activities to split the motherland in the name of ethnic issues and other illegal doings in the name of religion must be dealt with in accordance with law and vicious cults must be banned, it said.

Social security measures must be implemented at the grassroots level, criminal activities endangering national security and public orders, as well as social vices like prostitution, gambling and drugs shall be severely cracked down upon and wiped out, it said.

The document also elaborated on China's future defence policies, saying that national defence must be further strengthened along with economic progress.

New high-technology weapons shall be developed to enhance the Chinese army's defence capability for new situations that may arise, it said.

On the role of the CPC in China's socialist modernization drive, the document said that its administerial capability must be improved and updated, especially the capability to regulate the national economy and social development.

It said that the Party must follow the three principles raised by General Secretary Jiang Zemin that the Party must always earnestly represent the development requirements of China's advanced social productive forces, the progressive course of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.

(China Daily 2000/10/19)