Chinese officials obligated to pledge allegiance to Constitution

BEIJING - Chinese government officials must pledge their allegiance to the country's Constitution before taking office from now on, said a key policy document of the Communist Party of China (CPC) published on Tuesday.

According to the CPC Central Committee's decision on major issues concerning comprehensively advancing rule of law, all officials elected or appointed by the people's congresses and their standing committees at both national and local levels must in the future take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution in public.

The move is to help bolster the authority of the Constitution which should be the "basic law" governing the country, CPC Central Committee General Secretary Xi Jinping was quoted as saying when explaining the decision in another document also issued on Tuesday.

"The authority of rule of law relies on that of the Constitution," Xi said, adding that the public pledge of allegiance could encourage officials to abide by and protect the Constitution, and could inspire the public to raise their Constitutional awareness.

The decision on major issues concerning comprehensively advancing rule of law was approved by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee last week and its full text was published Tuesday.

"Efforts to adhere to the rule of law should give priority to the rule of Constitution, and to adhere to the governing by law should put the governing in line with Constitution in the first place," it said.

All Chinese people, government, military organs, political parties, social organizations and enterprises, bear the responsibility to uphold the dignity of Constitution and safeguard its implementation, the decision read.

Those who act against the Constitution will be held accountable and their actions rectified, it said.

The decision also set December 4 as China's Constitution Day, and said across-the-board education initiatives on the Constitution must be promoted to shore up public awareness.

The National People's Congress and its Standing Committee, meanwhile, should play a better role in supervising the Constitution's implementation, the decision read, adding that procedural rules regarding the interpretation of the Constitution should be improved.

It continued to say that all regulatory documents of the government should be filed for record and those that run counter to the Constitution must be rectified or nullified.

China's current Constitution was adopted on Dec. 4, 1982 based on a previous version enacted in 1954.