By Huang Jin, Research Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC

Research Report, No.227, 2021 (Total 6292) 2021-8-25

Abstract: Local customs and village rules are the codes of conduct of villagers’ self-restraint and self-management, and an important foundation of villagers’ self-governance. In recent years, in terms of local customs and village rules in China, the formulation procedures have been continuously improved, and the contents have continued to be enriched, playing a tangible role for village management. However, there are also some typical problems to be resolved. For instance, after young women in a village get married in other places, their legal rights are not properly protected. In some villages, the village authorities make excessive fines, arbitrarily cancel villagers’ subsistence allowances, willfully give punishment to villagers, the prior filing is irregular, and the ex-post assistance channels are imperfect. Such problems have seriously infringed on the legitimate rights and interests of some villagers, and they need to be taken seriously. In view of these issues, we need to strictly implement the administrative filing system in terms of local customs and village rules and promptly correct the illegal performance; we need to explore ways for the legal review of local customs and village rules to ensure that the formulation procedures and contents of local customs and village rules are legal; we need to formulate legal and reasonable rewards and punishments to solve the problems relating to the implementation of local customs and village rules; we need to refine the supervision mechanism of local customs and village rules so as to fully reflect the interests of villagers; we need to strengthen education of villages about the law and cultivate villagers’ rule of law awareness and self-governance ability.

Keywords: local customs and village rules, village’s self-governance, grassroots governance, legalization