Benchmarks in legal construction sector to boost rule of law

Setting up indicators of legal construction work in government officials' evaluation system will help accelerate the process of rule of law in China, a senior official in the State Council Legislative Affairs Office said on Thursday.

Yuan Shuhong, deputy director of the office, said at a news conference that there is urgent need to specify how to assess government officials’ performance of duties in legal construction work. "If there is no indicator included in the evaluation system in this regard, the rule of law is not likely to really achieve any progress," he said.

The comment made by Yuan aims at emphasizing the determination of the China's leadership in implementing the rule of law in a pragmatic way.

In recently convened the fourth plenary meeting of the 18th Communist Party of China's Central Committee from Oct 20 to 23, the leadership set a new blueprint for rule of law promising sweeping judicial reforms. This is the first time a plenary session of the CPC Central Committee has taken rule of law as its central theme.

An encouraging feature of the CPC's plan is the discussion of the effectiveness of implementing rule of law to avoid it becoming merely a wishful thinking.

The effectiveness of implementing rule of law will be a significant index in judging the work of officials at various levels and will be added to their performance appraisal system, said a communique after the meeting.

Yuan said Party chiefs at all levels are explicitly defined as the primary individual responsible for implementing the rule of law and a specific assessment system of their work in this regard should be set up as soon as possible to ensure the effectiveness of the legal process.

"Legal affairs touch every aspect of our life. We have made comprehensive laws in food and drug safety, work safety, environment protection and social stability. If we implement the laws without any flaw, social problems will be easily addressed," Yuan said.

Talking about introducing indicators in the assessment of the construction of legal system, Yuan expressed his full support to make a detailed evaluation list for the government officials' performance and encouraged local governments to borrow ideas from GDP examination methods.

Guangdong province is ahead of the process of establishing indicators to evaluate government performance in legal construction.

The paperwork of an evaluation system as well as drawing up indicators have been completed. Twelve evaluation teams were sent in March to 21 cities and districts, 29 organizations at provincial levels and 61 other organizations to access officials’ performance in implementing the rule of law under the newly built system.

Eight major indicators in the system involve much of public opinion and underscored the implementation of legal procedures in every policymaking step by government officials.