EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 18 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 207 particularities. Chinese legislation established the legal device of judicial interpretations in the 1979 Organizational Law of the People's Courts, but they are only vaguely described as an interpretation of questions on how to specifically apply laws and orders in adjudication proceedings. In a first phase, the SPC was inconsistent in how it used this authorisation to interpret laws. This phase ended with the SPC’s issuance of rules in 1997 introducing separate categories and unifying the procedure and promulgation of judicial interpretations. According to a functional approach, there are two categories of judicial inter- pretations in China: concrete-individual judicial interpretations, in which the SPC is issuing a reply to requests from lower-level courts in a specific case, and abstract-general judicial interpretations, which contain rules for general application. After 1997 the number of abstract-general judicial interpretations quickly surpassed the number of concrete-individual judicial interpretations. The former interpreta- tions are of particular interest from several standpoints: First of all, they are of much greater relevance in practice. This is not only confirmed by statistical evidence but also because such abstract-general judicial interpretations are by their nature applied to pending cases far more repeatedly. Secondly, such interpretations are exceptional from a comparative perception because only a few jurisdictions feature a similar legal device and the SPC interpretations raise questions as to the delimitation of legislation and adjudication. Rotermund Nina (University Duisburg Essen) Fazhi and the Chinese Bureaucracy Key words: fazhi, rule of/by law, bureaucracy, litigation, 4th plenum After the 4th Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee announced the promotion of administration according to law, in May 2015, twenty years after its original enactment, the Administrative Litigation Law (ALL) was revised and lauded as a considerable piece of reform. After that, in December 2015, the State Council proposed steps to reform the Urban Management Law Enforcement Departments as an inherent part of carrying out the so-called “four comprehensives”, a political strategy unveiled by President Xi Jin- ping in February 2015. Despite these two administrative reform milestones, Chinese legal scholars are still concerned that both the revision and the announcement only touch upon obvious symptoms, but do not cure the real problem which is that several important national administrative laws are either missing or still too vague to make sure that the people are truly ruled with/by laws. In order to assess the overall significance of the revision of the ALL and the State Council’s opinion, one has to consider a broader context. We can see the very objective of administrative law to organize and define the proper conduct of the exercise of public authority with a view also to safeguarding individual rights. Public administration is usually influ- enced by the political strategies of those in charge. Why does the new generation of leaders start to revise administrative laws right now and for what purpose? Sapio Flora (Australian National University) Party Discipline Contribution to the Concept of Fazhi Key words: rule of/by law; party discipline; 4th plenum; fazhi; legal traditions One of the most important trends started by the Fourth Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Party Congress has been the completion of the CCP's system of intra-party legislation. This choice is important in two dif- ferent respects: first, intra-party legislation provides the regulatory basis that allows the CCP to govern its institutions, and its members. Second, in the CCP's intentions, intra-party legislation provides a regulatory guarantee to fazhi, because intra-party legislation is meant to combine, and to work in coordination with the state law. Since the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, in 1921, this is the first major, and sys- tematic effort at overhauling intra-party legislation. Begun in 2013, reforms in intra-party legislation will be completed by 2017. As this reform process continues, Party discipline organs are articulating their own understanding of what intra-party regulations are, of what Party discipline means, and of the reasons why Party discipline is necessary to guarantee fazhi. In so doing, Party discipline organs are expressing their