New urbanization should follow the path of the rule of law

A few years ago, when I was studying the issue of urbanization, I explicitly put forward the concept of rule-of-law urbanization, holding that new urbanization should be rule-of-law urbanization. At present, in advancing people-centered new urbanization, rule-of-law urbanization is a very important topic. Simply put, rule-of-law urbanization is urbanization that constrains the public power of the government, urbanization that protects citizens' basic rights, and urbanization that safeguards social fairness and justice. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee proposed comprehensively advancing the rule of law, and this is the best development opportunity for bringing urbanization onto the track of the rule of law. To advance rule-of-law urbanization, I believe we should focus on the following five basic links:

First, focus on the link of legislation. The ancients said: If good laws are established throughout the world, the world will be well governed; if good laws are established in a state, the state will be well governed. All laws and regulations that harm farmers' rights should be amended or repealed. On the one hand, under the long-standing urban-rural dual system, many laws, including the Land Administration Law, as well as a series of policies and regulations, are not conducive to protecting farmers' rights to land property. With respect to these laws, legislators should resolutely abolish them in accordance with the strategic requirements of building a China under the rule of law. All unjust laws should be abolished. On the other hand, with the development of society, there are also problems of lagging legislation or missing laws, and some social practices have no relevant legal support. For example, we have already issued the Regulations on the Expropriation of and Compensation for Houses on State-Owned Land, but the Regulations on the Expropriation of and Compensation for Houses on Collective Land have never been issued. There are many such examples. In addition, although we have many laws, after the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee proposed comprehensively advancing the rule of law, some laws inconsistent with the concept of the rule of law need to be amended and supplemented more quickly. If these rule-of-law problems are not solved, we cannot respond to the individual cases of forced expropriation and forced demolition that constantly break out in urban and rural areas. There are many problems in the individual cases of forced expropriation and forced demolition that have broken out in China's urbanization, and this is related to our basic institutional structure. In the new round of reform, what we need most is to build a rule-of-law environment. All unjust laws must be abolished, and we need good laws to govern the country. What is the rule of law? Aristotle said that the laws that are made are obeyed by all, and at the same time the laws that all obey are just laws, that is, good laws.

Second, focus on the link of law enforcement. On the one hand, at present it is generally emphasized that law enforcement should be strict. If we carefully examine this, we find that good laws should be strictly enforced, but bad laws should be amended, not strictly enforced. For example, the more strictly old laws unfavorable to farmers' rights are enforced, the more unfavorable they are to farmers. Especially with old unjust laws, if they are strictly enforced, society cannot develop. On the other hand, there is also such a prominent problem: some local governments strictly enforce the law against farmers and strictly enforce the law against ordinary people, but do not strictly enforce the law against the government itself. We find that in some places, whenever something is beneficial to government departments and unfavorable to farmers, the law is strictly enforced, such as in land expropriation and demolition; whenever a law is "unfavorable" to the government and beneficial to ordinary people, it is not enforced. The imbalance between the law's constraints on ordinary people and its constraints on the government is very serious. Han Feizi said: "The sage governs officials, not the people." The key is that the government persists in administration according to law and persists in constraining the government by the rule of law.

Third, focus on the link of the judiciary. The key to the judiciary is fairness. But in this link, when it involves issues of land expropriation and demolition, a relatively common phenomenon is that courts do not accept cases, and it is very difficult for the people to sue officials, which has caused a large number of petition cases and triggered a series of self-immolation incidents and mass incidents. Sometimes both the demolisher and the demolished become victims. For example, according to recent media reports, a farmer in Fujian Province poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire during land expropriation and demolition, and he hugged the village committee director and burned him too. In some cases, explosions occurred during demolition, and village cadres and others participating in forced demolition were also killed. In this violent urbanization, our society must pay a bloody and tearful price for it. If the courts do not accept cases, and after accepting cases do not administer justice fairly, then a link for safeguarding justice is missing, and it will be very difficult for this society to be governed in an orderly way. The Administrative Procedure Law has just been amended and officially took effect on May 1, 2015. We hope that after the newly amended Administrative Procedure Law, farmers can be effectively guaranteed to safeguard their rights through legal means. If social problems cannot be solved through legal means, this society will be full of violence and tragedy. We must understand that law is the most effective peaceful means of resolving disputes. As General Secretary Xi Jinping put it: "Efforts must be made to let the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case." All judicial organs must improve their work according to this goal.

Fourth, focus on the link of law-abiding behavior. Law-abiding behavior includes both citizens abiding by the law and the government abiding by the law. If citizens' legal quality is not high, it is not conducive to law-abiding behavior. But in real life, we find that the phenomenon of the government not abiding by the law is more serious and even more detrimental to advancing rule-of-law construction. Nowadays, in demolition, many ordinary people actively study the law, understand the law, and understand policy, while some local governments do not publish relevant policies and laws and do not let ordinary people know relevant policies. The phenomenon of some local governments not abiding by the law is quite common. For example, with the issue of homestead land, some local governments do not approve homestead land for a long time. What are ordinary people to do? But if you build a house without the consent of the local government, the local government immediately demolishes your house. Their law enforcement is very fast and efficient. Some local governments themselves do not abide by the law, yet still say that you, the ordinary people, have violated the law. If the government does not abide by the law, there cannot be general law-abiding behavior by citizens. The government taking the lead in abiding by the law can set a benchmark for society to abide by the law, thereby guiding the whole society to abide by the law. New urbanization urgently needs to build a law-abiding government.

Fifth, focus on the link of rights protection. Legislation, law enforcement, the judiciary, law-abiding behavior, and rights protection - these links are indispensable for advancing rule-of-law urbanization. After farmers' rights are infringed upon, legal remedies are needed. But for a long time, some local governments one-sidedly pursued "stability overriding everything," thereby suppressing those who legitimately and lawfully defended their rights. This gave rise to a strange phenomenon: farmers whose rights have been harmed cannot normally defend their rights through the courts, and can only defend their rights by petitioning for redress. But in some places, petitions have been turned into an indicator-based management responsibility system, with pressure applied layer by layer, which gave rise to another strange phenomenon: the relevant departments do not actively solve the problems reported by the people, but instead go all out to solve the people who report the problems. Whoever petitions, they solve that person. This is a very big social problem that existed under the past stability-maintenance orientation. A very strange problem is that our relevant departments do not solve the problems reported by citizens, but instead solve the people who report the problems. This traditional technique of maintaining stability is far removed from the purpose of serving the people. Some self-immolation incidents in forced expropriation and forced demolition all occurred because farmers had no way out and could not safeguard their rights and interests through normal channels, and only through extreme violent means, self-sacrifice, and retaliation against society. In this regard, we must draw a painful lesson and realize stability maintenance through rights protection.

China is in the process of rapid urbanization. To make urbanization truly benefit the people, we must organically combine new urbanization with the rule of law, bring urbanization onto the track of the rule of law, take the path of rule-of-law urbanization, truly take safeguarding and realizing farmers' rights as the starting point and foothold of advancing new urbanization, advance urbanization with rule-of-law thinking and rule-of-law methods, and safeguard and develop farmers' rights with rule-of-law thinking and rule-of-law methods.