The story about “Three-Supremacies”
The
birth of “Three-Supremacies”: From Party Lint into State value
The
ideal of “Three-Supremacies” had been promoted as the core value of “Socialist
Rule of Law,” which was first been promulgated by General Secretary Hu Jingtao
at National Politics and Law Conference in 2007. “Three-Supremacies” mean
“always upholding Supremacy of CPC business; Supremacy of the People’s interest
and Supremacy of Constitution and Law.”[1]
Although the National Politics and Law Conference in 2007 were attended by
Senior Judges and Procurators and other judicial staffs, this conference and “Three-Supremacies”
were not a state action. From official news report, we discovered that Hu
jingtao came with the Party title of “General Secretary” instead of
“President,” which means he represented party rather than state in this meeting.
From this clue, we could safely say Three-Supremacies was first promulgated
from Party line then expanded into State apparatus.
The
process of transforming a party line into state policy followed a same routine.
First, party internally discusses and determines a policy. After party
publicized their new policy, a political campaign will started national wide
among party members. Then, all party organs in state apparatus will heavily
study and discuss the new policy. In our story, all party organs in China’s
Justice System and law schools will heavily study and discuss “Three-Supremacies.”
Party organ leader, who also serve as leader in relevant state departments,
agencies, offices will later determine the latest party policy as their
institutional value. Because 90% of the state staffs are party members, it is
easy to have a policy transit from Party line into a state value.
“Three-Supremacies”
Lost its Charm?
At
the very beginning, the ideal of “Three-Supremacies” suffered flooding
criticisms from the legal professionals privately. Even though the authority is
strongly promoting “Three-Supremacies”, privately, it suffered most severe
attacks and complaints by countless legal professionals and scholars. Many
people considered it as a shame of China’s legal development. The biggest
challenge of this ideal is “Who is the real Supremacy?[2]”
Behind legal professionals’ contemptuous view on this ideal is Chinese people’s
outcry and disappointments to the disproportional development of China’s
judicial system. Such outcry is flamed by media coverage of Justice System’s
poor reputation and corruption; flamed by society’s comparison between more
developed western legal market and Chinese under developed legal market; and
flamed by Party’s insensitive about society’s demanding for more independence
for judicial system.
As
a former Chinese law school student, I personal experienced numerous people’s
reaction to “Three-Supremacies.” Based on person experience, it would be gentle
to say people despise “Three-Supremacies.” Recently, it seems that there is a
trend that “Three-Supremacies” lost its charm and popularity. When I did Google
news research, there was no single news about studying or promoting “Three-Supremacies”
after April 27th of 2012.[3]
Also recently, there are few articles analyzed new leader Xi’s speech indicated
CPC may not continuing Three-Supremacies . At least, deemphasized Party’s
presentation in Justice System.
New
leader in CPC Politics and Law Committee
Under
current Chinese’ Party-State Constitution structure, Party organs that build
within Chinese Justice System are under the leadership of Politics and Law
Committee of CPC. The secretary of Politics and Law Committee is the leader for
every CPC member Judges, Procurators and Judicial staffs. The previous sectary
of PLC, Zhou Yongkang, was an advocator of “Three-Supremacies,” which offended
numerous Chinese legal professionals. Most importantly, Zhou’s suspicious close
relation with Bo made Zhou extremely unpopular in China after the events of Bo
and Wang lijun. In November of 2012, Zhou was replaced by Meng xianzhu
temporally. The most shocking decision Meng made at his term was about
abolishing Re-education through labor system.[4]
Re-education through labor system has been known as Laojiao and constantly
subject to severe criticisms by human rights groups. There are solid evidence
indicates that Laojiao system had been utilized by some governments as a tool
against people who could possibly bring undesired negative attentions from
media over local government’s legally and morally questionable conducts.
None
of Meng and Xi did mention “Three-Supremacies” in their discussions about
“China’s socialist Rule of Law” Xi emphasized that “Judicial System should aim
at making people feel justice.” Meng emphasized that “Professionalism for the
judicial system.”[5] The new
secretary of the CPC Politics and Law Committee is Wang Yongqi, who just took
the position on April 22 of 2013. Unlike Zhou and Meng, who only had
engineering backgrounds and zero experience in legal world, Wang graduated with
Law major in one of the high prestigious law school Jilin University, famous
for Constitution Law and Legal theory, and later did research works at Peking
University (Beijing University). His previous position was State Council Law
working committee. Under current view, he is a technocrat in China’s politics
structure, who experienced in policy and law.
Conclusion
It
is still too early to tell whether “Three-Supremacies” will be abandoned. However,
the trend of “Professionalism” and the ideal of “Rule of Law” will be studied and
discussed more by CPC and Chinese legal world. Meanwhile, under China’s
Party-State Constitution structure, CPC and China’s legal world will continuing
seeking theories to structure socialist Rule of Law with China’s characteristic
like socialist market economy with China’s characteristic.
[1] One thing need worth to notice is the fact that Google research did
not give Xinhua News and People’s Daily’s publication on Hu’s speech on this ‘important’
ideal. This could one of many evidence indicating the declining popularity of “Three-Supremacy.”
“Three-Supremacy” see wikipieda. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Supremes
[2] He weifang, one of the most well known Constitution scholar in
China, he write blog “ Three-Supremacy: Who really supremacy after the new
campaign promote this ideal.”http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_488663200100atga.html
[3] There will be many reasons for this result. However, it at least
indicate the declined popularity of “Three-Supremacy.”
[4] Re-education through labor. Re-education through labor (RTL)
(simplified Chinese: 劳动教养; traditional Chinese: 勞動教養; pinyin: láodòng jiàoyǎng),
abbreviated (simplified Chinese: 劳教; traditional Chinese: 勞教; pinyin: láojiào) is a
system of administrative detentions in the People's Republic of China which is
generally used to detain persons for minor crimes such as petty theft,
prostitution, and trafficking illegal drugs, as well as religious or political
dissidents such as unregistered Christians or Falun Gong adherents. It is
separate from the much larger laogaisystem of prison labour camps, estimated to
hold millions of people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_through_labor
[5] 解析政法委改革风向：政法工作向“法治化”推进China Newweek. 2013/4/28. ”Interpreting the new trend of Judicial
reform ‘Toward Rule of Law’” http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2013/04-28/4774066_2.shtml
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