Chinese Law & Politics

Change of mandates of the political-legal committee - Analysis of the Political-Legal Work Directive Part 3 Ling Li University of Vienna (Twitter: @lingli_vienna) 22 Jan. 2019 I am not aware of or have come across any written document that lays down specifically what kind of legal affairs that should be overseen by the Party Committee, prior to the Political-Legal Work Directive (the Directive) just issued now . So it is difficult to ascertain what has changed regarding the supervisory scope of the Party Committee in relation to the work of its Political-Legal Committee (PLC), i.e. what matters a PLC is required to seek for approval and/or report to a corresponding Party Committee. I have not come across any written document that specifies the mandates of the Central Party Political-Legal Committee in relation to courts, procuratorates and other political-legal institutions either. It is very likely that there was one but it was classified. HOWEVER, one can fi...

Analysis of the Chinese Communist Party's Political-Legal Work Directive - Chain of political supervision Ling Li In this part, I would like to elaborate a bit further on what this Directive reveals about the change of power dynamics among top Party offices. In this aspect, what is most interesting about this Directive is Chapter 6 on the practice of seek-for-approval (qingshi) and report. 1. Chapter 6 has demarcated, in the most concrete terms so far, the mandates of the Party Center and the Central Political-Legal Committee (CPLC) respectively in overseeing political-legal affairs and the activities of of zhengfa institutions (courts, procuratorates, police, national security ministry, ministry of justice). In particular, Article 17 requires the CPLC to report to not only the Party Center but also the General-Secretary (GS). It may look totally expected/predictable given the fact that Xi's status as the core has been written into various Party poli...

Analysis Of Chinese Communist Party’s Political-Legal Work Directive - First impressions Chinese Communist Party’s Political-Legal Work Directive (effective from Jan. 13, 2019) English translation Original Chinese text Ling Li  University of Vienna  1. It declares the absolute leadership of the Party over the work of all zhengfa institutions, including courts and procuratorates. The assertiveness of this declaration indicates a complete and unambivalent severance from the judicial independence framework. 2. It officially brings back the concepts of two contradictions/conflicts: (external) contradiction/conflicts between the enemy and us (the people) and internal contradiction/conflicts among us (the people), as well as the concept of people’s democratic dictatorship as one of the guiding principles of political-legal work. (Article 6.6). We can expect to see two tracks of legal practices, one for external conflicts and one for internal conflicts, and both wou...