The concept of socialist rule of law is a collection of a series of thoughts, beliefs, ideals and values that reflect the inherent requirements of socialist rule of law, and it is the guidelines and principles that guide and adjust socialist legislation, law enforcement, judicature, law-abiding and legal supervision. To grasp the concept of socialist rule of law, we must proceed from China's socialist country and political system, base ourselves on the requirements of the development of socialist market economy and democratic politics, and take Scientific Outlook on Development and the thought of socialist harmonious society as the guidance, deeply understand the internal requirements, spiritual essence and basic laws of socialist rule of law, and systematically reflect the core ideas, basic beliefs and value orientations that are in line with China's national conditions and the development direction of human rule of law civilization.
Adhering to the organic unity of the party's leadership, the people being the masters of the country and governing the country according to law is the core and essence of the socialist concept of rule of law.
General Secretary Hu Jintao said in his speech at the 20th anniversary of the promulgation and implementation of the Constitution in all walks of life in the capital: "The leadership of the Party is the fundamental guarantee for the people to be masters of the country and to govern the country according to law. The people being the masters of the country is the essential requirement of socialist democratic politics, and governing the country according to law is the basic strategy for the party and the people to govern the country. " This is the basic idea formed by our party on the basis of summing up the experience of the rise and fall of socialist countries, especially the experience of socialist democracy construction and legal system construction in China, and drawing lessons from the reasonable components of modern rule of law theory. The organic unity of the party's leadership, the people being the masters of the country and governing the country according to law embodies the characteristics and requirements of China's socialist national system and polity. Only by comprehensively grasping this core concept can we understand the essential connotation of socialist rule of law.
Fairness and justice is the basic value orientation of socialist rule of law.
There are two basic requirements for the rule of law, one is to formulate perfect laws, and the other is that such laws are generally observed. The so-called "good law" is the law that embodies social fairness and justice. The so-called "universal obedience" means that both substantive justice and procedural justice of the law are fully realized. Modern rule of law is not only an important carrier of fairness and justice, but also an important mechanism to guarantee fairness and justice. Fairness and justice refers to properly coordinating the interests of all sectors of society, correctly handling contradictions among the people and other social contradictions, and effectively safeguarding and realizing social fairness and justice. Fairness and justice is an important symbol of the civilization and progress of human society and an important link of a harmonious socialist society. With the development of market economy, the change of social structure and the diversification of interest relations, the problem of social equity has become increasingly prominent. It is very important to attach great importance to, scientifically analyze and correctly solve these problems for maintaining social stability and harmony and reducing social risks and turbulence. To solve judicial problems, we should comprehensively use policy, legal, economic and administrative means, adhere to the principle of legal, timely and reasonable solution, and adopt education, consultation, mediation and justice. The most important thing is to gradually establish and legally guarantee a fair mechanism, fair rules, fair environment, fair conditions and fair development opportunities by promoting the process of socialist rule of law. Socialist legislation should reflect the demands and aspirations of the whole society for fairness and justice, make the demands of justice legal and institutionalized, and make the ways to realize justice procedural and open. The fundamental task of the socialist judicial system is to ensure the fairness and justice of the whole society. Due to the influence of China's feudal tradition, people pay more attention to substantive justice than procedural justice, especially in law enforcement, some law enforcement officers unilaterally pursue the truth, emphasize confession and ignore evidence, violate legal procedures, and even extort confessions by torture and detain them for extended periods. Therefore, we must vigorously advocate and emphasize the comprehensive view of justice that pays equal attention to substantive justice and procedural justice.
Respecting and safeguarding human rights is the basic principle of socialist rule of law.
Human rights are the rights that people should enjoy as human beings, and they are the minimum confirmation of people's subjective status, dignity, freedom and interests by modern social morality and law. Human rights come from human rationality, dignity and value. Basic human rights are recognized by the contemporary international community as rights that all people should share. People's subjective status, dignity, freedom and interests are declared or recognized as rights, not only because they are often in danger of being violated and denied, but also because human rights are the yardstick and motive force of social civilization and progress. Modern law is the institutional arrangement and coercive force to protect human rights. It is human rights that embody the spirit of modern law, and it is the protection of human rights that lays the rational foundation of modern law. In the era of new democracy and socialist revolution, in order to strive for and realize human rights, the people of China overthrew all exploiting classes and systems and established a socialist regime. In the era of socialist modernization and comprehensive reform and opening up, with the continuous improvement of China's basic economic system with public ownership as the mainstay and multiple ownership economies developing together, the distribution system with distribution according to work as the mainstay and multiple modes of distribution coexisting has been continuously improved, and the trend of diversified social interests and complicated social contradictions has become increasingly obvious. As a long-term ruling party, China must break through two contradictory theories. Establish the concept of respecting and protecting human rights, attach great importance to safeguarding the most realistic, caring and direct interests of the masses, attach great importance to solving the difficult problems faced by the masses in production and life, shift the focus of work from adjusting opposing class relations to recognizing and protecting the rights and obligations of social interests such as political relations, economic relations, property relations and personal relations, change the concept of attaching importance to political power over civil rights, and improve the awareness of human rights protection and the ability to govern according to law. At present, in the field of criminal justice, some law enforcement officers still have the concept of focusing on cracking down on crimes and neglecting human rights protection, and are used to presumption of guilt and ignore the function of human rights protection of criminal justice. Therefore, we must vigorously advocate the concept of paying equal attention to cracking down and protecting, and enhance the awareness of people-oriented and civilized law enforcement.
Legal authority is the fundamental requirement of socialist rule of law.
State organs and their public officials in any society need certain authority, and the government authority in a society ruled by law is the authority placed under the legal authority. Whether the Constitution and laws really enjoy the highest authority in political and social life is the key to a country's rule of law. In modern countries ruled by law, some claim that the Constitution and laws have supreme authority, while others claim that no organization or individual can override the Constitution and laws, and all regard establishing legal authority as an important content to realize the rule of law. On the one hand, legal authority should establish a legal system with objectivity, certainty, stability and predictability through legislation. If laws can be changed at any time according to needs, from person to person and from place to place, then there is no rule of law at all. On the other hand, legal authority should ensure that any individual, organization or state organ can operate within the scope prescribed by law through law enforcement, judicature and law-abiding. In particular, state power organs and their public officials should act in strict accordance with the law, and those who violate the law will be prosecuted, effectively preventing any person or organization from enjoying the privilege above the law. The basic principle of socialist legal system, that is, "there are laws to follow, there are laws to be followed, and those who violate the law are prosecuted", is to make socialist laws have great authority. Article 5 of China's Constitution clearly stipulates the basic requirements of legal authority: "The state maintains the unity and dignity of the socialist legal system. All laws, administrative regulations and local regulations shall not contravene the Constitution. All state organs and armed forces, political parties, social organizations, enterprises and institutions must abide by the Constitution and laws. All violations of the Constitution and laws must be investigated. No organization or individual may have privileges beyond the Constitution and laws. " At present, to establish the concept of legal authority, we should pay special attention to maintaining the unity of the legal system, opposing local and departmental protectionism, and opposing legal instrumentalism that puts individuals or organizations above the law.
Supervision and restriction are the internal mechanism of socialist rule of law.
The significance of the rule of law lies in that it can not only make full use of state power to promote and protect citizens' rights, but also prevent the abuse and corruption of state power, ensure that state organs and public officials correctly exercise their power, and truly use the power entrusted by the people for the benefit of the people. The basic measure of socialist rule of law to prevent the abuse of power and ensure the correct exercise of power is to establish a power operation mechanism with reasonable structure, scientific allocation, strict procedures, effective restriction and strong supervision, and to bring all the powers in decision-making and implementation into the supervision and restriction mechanism to ensure that power runs along the track of institutionalization and legalization. Any power that is not supervised and restricted will inevitably lead to abuse and corruption. The implementation of the rule of law is to effectively supervise and restrict state power and prevent the alienation of state power. In China, people's congresses at all levels are democratically elected, accountable to and supervised by the people; The state administrative organs and judicial organs are produced by the people's congresses, and they are responsible to the people's congresses, report their work and accept supervision. Efforts should be made to broaden the channels of democratic supervision, improve the transparency of power operation, and organically combine democratic supervision, party organization supervision, legal supervision, administrative supervision and news public opinion supervision to form a supervision system in Socialism with Chinese characteristics. There are many ways to strengthen the supervision and restriction of power. The most important thing is to ensure the overall coordination and legal conduct of various supervision systems. It is necessary to realize the legalization of supervision and improve the legal system of supervision. To establish the concept that power is subject to supervision and restriction, we must fully implement the constitutional principles of division of responsibilities, mutual cooperation and mutual restriction, and oppose the practice of emphasizing cooperation and neglecting restriction, and oppose judicial dogmatism that excludes supervision.
Freedom and equality is the ideal and measure of socialist rule of law.
Freedom is a progressive state in which people are liberated from the bondage of natural forces and social relations, and the internal scale of people and the external scale of things are transformed and unified. The fundamental task of socialism is to create social preconditions for realizing and guaranteeing human freedom. The socialist rule of law is a social control system that creates and guarantees this developing freedom. Only by adhering to the people-oriented principle and developing socialist democracy and the rule of law can we ensure that human dignity, value and subjectivity are respected, give full play to human initiative and creativity, and create a harmonious society full of vitality, fairness and justice. The fundamental defect of the ancient rule of law is that ordinary citizens have not become the main body of the rule of law, and the rule of law is only a tool for the ruling class to govern the country and govern the country. "Governing the country according to law" has evolved into "governing the people according to law", and it is difficult to jump out of the category of rule by man. The advantage and success of modern rule of law lies in that the state not only relies on the coercive force and stipulation of law to establish a stable social order, but more importantly, it uses law to limit the power of state organs and their public officials, thus equally protecting citizens' rights and making ordinary citizens the subject of rule of law. With the development of socialist market economy and democratic politics, we must regard civil rights (the legal expression of individual freedom) as the basic elements of social relations and legal order. The equal protection of civil rights is not only the embodiment of the superiority of socialist rule of law, but also an important symbol of economic system reform, political system reform, judicial system reform and even the development of the whole society. In the past two decades, every major institutional reform can be attributed to re-understanding and adjusting the relationship between rights and obligations, and increasing the equal protection of civil liberties and rights. The process of China's social development and the development of the rule of law is a process in which citizens' demands and awareness of rights are constantly growing, and the mechanism for ensuring the equality of citizens' rights is gradually improved and perfected. Therefore, we should establish the concept of right standard and equality before the law, enhance the awareness of equal protection of civil liberties and rights, straighten out the relationship between civil rights and state power, and oppose the official standard and the will of the chief executive.
The socialist concept of rule of law is a modern concept of rule of law based on Marxist theory, which reflects and guides the practice of rule of law in Socialism with Chinese characteristics. It not only has the progressiveness of embracing all advanced concepts of the rule of law, but also emphasizes the concreteness of historical development stages based on reality. Ignoring its progressiveness will easily lead to the realistic tendency of accommodating the rule of man; Ignoring its concreteness will easily lead to fantasy or ideological confusion beyond the realistic possibility.
Building a harmonious socialist society is an important strategic task put forward by our party under the guidance of Marxism–Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and Theory of Three Represents, and from the overall layout of Socialism with Chinese characteristics's cause and the overall construction of a well-off society. It reflects the inherent requirements of building a prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized and harmonious socialist modern country, and embodies the common aspirations of the whole party and the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country. It is of great theoretical and practical significance to build a harmonious socialist society.
Our Party's thought on building a harmonious socialist society has opened up a new realm of socialist social construction theory and enriched and developed Socialism with Chinese characteristics Theory.
First of all, building a harmonious socialist society is a deepening of the understanding of the development law of human society and an enrichment and development of Marxist social construction theory. Realizing social harmony and building a beautiful society has always been the social ideal pursued by human beings, but only when Marx and Engels founded historical materialism and revealed the essence, development motive force and development law of society can the ideal of human social harmony become science. In the process of establishing scientific socialism, Marx and Engels demonstrated the historical inevitability of realizing socialism, revealed the basic characteristics of harmonious social development in the future, and pointed out the basic conditions for realizing social harmony. The materialist dialectics founded by Marx and Engels reveals the laws of universal connection, unity of opposites and mutual transformation among various elements in the social system, and expounds the dialectical relations among social structure, man and society, man and nature, and man and man. Marx's exposition on "the union of free people" and "the free and all-round development of human beings" points out the target mode of a highly harmonious society in the future. Our Party's thought on building a harmonious socialist society follows the basic principles of Marxism, conforms to the historical trend of mankind, and combines Marx and Engels' scientific ideas on the future society with the reality of China, and gradually transforms them into realistic goals and concrete measures for social development, which conforms to the requirements of the laws of human historical development. The six aspects of building a harmonious socialist society are interrelated, including the harmony between people, people and society, and people and nature, which embodies the unity of democracy and the rule of law, fairness and efficiency, vitality and order, development and stability, science and humanities, and people and nature. These six requirements not only define the goal system of a harmonious society, but also put forward the basic ways and principles to achieve these goals, which are the enrichment and development of Marxist social construction theory by our party.
Secondly, the proposal of building a harmonious socialist society has deepened the understanding of the laws of socialist construction and enriched and developed Socialism with Chinese characteristics Theory. Promoting social harmony is the essential requirement of socialism. Judging from the historical process of socialist development, the serious setbacks suffered by the socialist movement in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have provided profound lessons. The Soviet Union is the first socialist country in the world, and it was once a model for all countries to build socialism. However, such a powerful country unexpectedly disintegrated quickly, and the Soviet Union lost its ruling position. One of the important reasons is that the Soviet Union failed to deal with the harmonious development of social members, economy, politics, culture and society in the process of reform, and failed to put social justice and improving people's living standards in its due important position. Many party member, workers and farmers in CPSU are desperate and lose confidence in the future of socialism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is an all-round development, all-round progress and all-round modernization society. The 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China defined the "three-step" strategic deployment of modernization and put forward the overall pattern of modernization including economic prosperity, political democracy and spiritual civilization. On the basis of the Party's basic theory and line, the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the basic program of building Socialism with Chinese characteristics's economy, politics and culture around the general goal of socialist modernization, which made the pattern of modernization clearer and deeper. In the new century, our party formally put forward the proposition of building a harmonious socialist society, expanding the overall layout of China's socialist modernization into a "four in one" including material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization and the construction of a harmonious society. This is not a simple increase, but a big leap in understanding. The proposal of a harmonious society shows that China pays more attention to social construction, social harmony, social equity and social justice. The Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee pointed out that "social harmony is the essential attribute of Socialism with Chinese characteristics and an important guarantee for the country's prosperity, national rejuvenation and people's happiness." This expands and deepens the strategic pattern of modernization, further enriches and innovates Socialism with Chinese characteristics's theoretical system, and provides a new, more complete and scientific coordinate system for us to examine and deal with various problems in China's modernization from a broader perspective. This is a new development of our party's understanding of Socialism with Chinese characteristics's cause, and it also shows that our party's understanding of the law of socialist construction is further deepened.
Third, the proposal of building a harmonious socialist society is a deepening of the understanding of the ruling law of * * * and a sublimation of our party's ruling concept. China is the leading core of Socialism with Chinese characteristics's cause. Only by carefully studying and mastering the ruling law, constantly improving the ruling strategy and improving the ruling ability can the Party effectively lead and promote the cause of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Building a harmonious socialist society further embodies the essential requirements of our party's governance. The 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to build a well-off society at a higher level in an all-round way, benefiting more than one billion people, and emphasized that the economy should be more developed, democracy should be more sound, science and education should be more advanced, culture should be more prosperous, society should be more harmonious, and people's lives should be more affluent. Emphasize efforts to form a situation in which all people do their best and live in harmony. Scientific Outlook on Development was put forward at the Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee, emphasizing people-oriented, establishing a comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development concept, and promoting the all-round development of economy, society and people. Emphasizing the important idea of coordinating urban and rural development, regional development, economic and social development, harmonious development between man and nature, domestic development and opening up is to strive to achieve harmony in all aspects of the whole society. On this basis, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee further summarized the concept of "harmonious society", put forward "to adapt to the profound changes in our society and put the construction of a harmonious society in an important position", and demanded to continuously improve the ability to build a socialist harmonious society, and regard it as one of the five ruling abilities that the party needs to strengthen. Our party's proposal to build a harmonious socialist society is the inherent requirement of building the party for the public and governing for the people. Only by building a harmonious socialist society, widely mobilizing the enthusiasm of all parties, properly coordinating the interests of all parties, and earnestly safeguarding and realizing social fairness and justice, can all people live in equality, friendship and harmony, and the relationship between man and nature be in a harmonious state, so as to more fully reflect the purpose and requirements of our party in governing for the people. Clearly put forward the construction of a harmonious socialist society, which embodies our party's new understanding of the ruling law and general plan, and marks that our party's exploration of the ruling law has reached a new height.
Building a harmonious socialist society is related to the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, to consolidating the party's ruling foundation and realizing the party's ruling task, and to the long-term stability of the country.
First, building a harmonious socialist society will help us seize and make good use of the important period of strategic opportunities and realize the grand goal of prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized and harmonious socialist modernization. After more than 20 years of reform and opening up, China has undergone earth-shaking changes and its achievements are obvious to all. In the new century, there have been some new trends and characteristics in China's economic and social development: due to the increasing pressure of resource and energy shortage, the contradiction between man and nature has become more and more prominent; Due to unbalanced development, the contradiction between urban and rural areas, between regions, between economic development and social development is more prominent. Because the people's material and cultural needs are constantly improving, more diversified, and the social interest relationship is more complicated, the harmony between people is facing new challenges; As the employment structure and mode of workers are constantly changing, the mobility of personnel is greatly enhanced, social organization and management are facing new problems, and the contradiction between people and society is more prominent, and so on. Solving these contradictions and problems is an important prerequisite for us to achieve the goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way and then realize socialist modernization, and it is also an important task for building a harmonious socialist society. Our party's overall plan for building a harmonious socialist society has pointed out the direction and clear path for us to understand and solve various contradictions and problems in economic and social development and promote the all-round construction of a well-off society and socialist modernization.
Second, building a harmonious socialist society is conducive to our accurate grasp of the complex and ever-changing international situation and effective response to various challenges and risks from the international environment. Peace and development are still the themes of today's era, but the international situation continues to be in profound and complex changes. The world pattern is in an important period of transition to multipolarization. The trend of economic globalization is constantly developing, scientific and technological progress is advancing by leaps and bounds, the speed of international industrial upgrading and transfer is accelerating, countries attach importance to economic development and international economic and technological cooperation, and the process of regional economic integration is accelerating. Generally speaking, these factors have brought rare opportunities and favorable conditions for China's reform and development. At the same time, we must be soberly aware that today's world is still very restless, various contradictions are complicated, and unstable and uncertain factors affecting peace and development still exist. Putting forward the idea of building a harmonious socialist society will help us to cope with all kinds of challenges and risks from the outside, handle domestic affairs well, and always maintain the situation of national unity, national unity and social stability under the complicated and ever-changing international situation. This is an important guarantee for concentrating the wisdom and strength of the whole Party and people and comprehensively promoting the cause of Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Third, building a harmonious socialist society is conducive to consolidating the social foundation of the party's governance and realizing the historical task of the party's governance. Building a harmonious socialist society is an inevitable requirement for our party to persist in building the party for the public and governing for the people, an important embodiment of our party's realization, maintenance and development of the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, and an important condition for our party to realize its historical task of governing. Since the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the central government has attached great importance to social construction. Emphasize building the party for the public and governing for the people, so that power is used by the people, affection is tied to the people, and benefits are sought by the people; Emphasize the firm establishment and earnest implementation of Scientific Outlook on Development to promote comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable economic and social development; Emphasize people-oriented, always regard the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people as the fundamental starting point and end result of the work of the party and the state, and earnestly do a good job in caring for the production and life of the masses; Emphasize the development of inner-party democracy and people's democracy, and fully mobilize all positive factors; Pay attention to establishing and practicing the socialist concept of honor and disgrace, and make new and important progress in promoting social harmony. Building a harmonious socialist society, uniting and rallying the thoughts and strength of the whole Party and people can provide Socialism with Chinese characteristics with strong spiritual support and material strength, strengthen the class foundation of the Party, expand the mass foundation of the Party, and consolidate and expand the social foundation of the Party's governance. Only by doing a good job in social construction can our party continuously strengthen the social foundation of governance and better realize the three historical tasks of continuing to promote modernization, completing the reunification of the motherland, safeguarding world peace and promoting common development.
Building a harmonious socialist society has a wide range of world significance. China is a country with a population of1.300 million. It is undoubtedly of world significance to strive to bring the contemporary human population above 1/5 into a harmonious state. Starting from the national conditions of the primary stage of socialism, China will explore practical ways to build a harmonious socialist society, which will make new contributions to the pursuit of a better social ideal for contemporary mankind.