Constitution of the People's Republic of China | |
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Overview | |
Original title | 中华人民共和国宪法 |
Jurisdiction | China |
Ratified | December 4, 1982 |
Date effective | December 4, 1982 |
System | Unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist republic |
Government structure | |
Branches | Six (Legislative, Executive, Military, Supervisory, Judicial, Procuratorial) |
Head of state | President [a] |
Chambers | Unicameral (National People's Congress) [b] |
Executive | State Council headed by the Premier of the State Council |
Judiciary | Supreme People's Court Supreme People's Procuratorate |
Federalism | No - Decentralization within a Unitary State (special administrative regions) |
Electoral college | Yes – the National People's Congress, which elects all other state authorities, is itself elected by two layers of Indirect election: County and Township People's Congresses elect the members of Provincial People's Congresses, who in turn elect the members of the National People's Congress. |
History | |
First legislature | September 21, 1949 (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) September 27, 1954 (National People's Congress) |
First executive | September 27, 1954 (1st National People's Congress) October 1, 1949 (Central People's Government) |
First court | October 22, 1949 |
Amendments | 5 |
Last amended | 11 March 2018 |
Location | Beijing |
Commissioned by | 11th Communist Party Central Committee |
Supersedes | 1978 Constitution of the People's Republic of China |
Full text | |
Constitution of the People's Republic of China at Wikisource | |
Footnote | |
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Constitution of China | |||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 中华人民共和国宪法 | ||||||
Traditional Chinese | 中華人民共和國憲法 | ||||||
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Chinaportal |
The Constitution of the People's Republic of China is the supreme law of the People's Republic of China. It was adopted by the 5th National People's Congress on December 4, 1982, with five further revisions. It is the fourth constitution in PRC history, superseding the 1954 constitution, the 1975 constitution, and the 1978 constitution. [1]
The first Constitution of the People's Republic of China was declared in 1954. The current Constitution was declared in 1982, [2] : 82 after two intervening versions enacted in 1975 and 1978. There were significant differences between each of these versions, and the 1982 Constitution has subsequently been amended five times.[ citation needed ]
The 1982 Constitution expunges almost all of the rhetoric associated with the Cultural Revolution incorporated in the 1978 version. In fact, the Constitution omits all references to the Cultural Revolution and restates CCP Chairman Mao Zedong's contributions in accordance with a major historical reassessment produced in June 1981 at the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee, the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China. [3]
There had been five major revisions by the National People's Congress (NPC) to the 1982 Constitution. The 1982 State Constitution provided a legal basis for the broad changes in China's social and economic institutions and significantly revised government structure. The posts of President and Vice President (which were abolished in the 1975 and 1978 constitutions) are re-established in the 1982 Constitution.[ citation needed ]
Prior to 1982 there were no term limits on key leadership posts. Deng imposed a two-term limit (10 years total) on all but the chair of the Central Military Commission. [5]
Much of the PRC Constitution is modeled after the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union, but there are some significant differences. For example, while the Soviet constitution contains an explicit right of secession, the Chinese constitution explicitly forbids secession. While the Soviet constitution formally creates a federal system, the Chinese constitution formally creates a unitary multi-national state.[ citation needed ]
The preamble describes China as "a country with one of the longest histories in the world. The people of all of China's nationalities have jointly created a culture of grandeur and have a glorious revolutionary tradition." [2] : 82 The preamble dates this revolutionary history as beginning in 1840. [2] : 82
Article 1 of the Constitution describes China as "a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship" [6] meaning that the system is based on an alliance of the working classes—in communist terminology, the workers and peasants—and is led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the vanguard of the working class. Elsewhere, the Constitution provides for a renewed and vital role for the groups that make up that basic alliance—the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, minor political parties, and people's organizations.
Article 3 describes the relationship between the central government and local governments: "The division of responsibility and power between the central and local government is governed under the unified leadership of the central government, while fully encouraging the principle of local government initiative and proactivity." [7] : 7–8
Article 35 of the 1982 Constitution proclaims that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration." [6] In the 1978 constitution, these rights were guaranteed, but so were the right to strike and the "four big rights", often called the "four bigs": to speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates, and write big-character posters. In February 1980, following the Democracy Wall period, the four bigs were abolished in response to a party decision ratified by the National People's Congress. The right to strike was also dropped from the 1982 Constitution. The widespread expression of the four big rights during the student protests of late 1986 elicited the regime's strong censure because of their illegality. The official response cited Article 53 of the 1982 Constitution, which states that citizens must abide by the law and observe labor discipline and public order. Besides being illegal, practicing the four big rights offered the possibility of straying into criticism of the CCP, which was in fact what appeared in student wall posters. In a new era that strove for political stability and economic development, party leaders considered the four big rights politically destabilizing. Chinese citizens are prohibited from forming new political parties. [8]
Among the political rights granted by the constitution, all Chinese citizens have rights to elect and be elected. [9] According to the later promulgated election law, rural residents had only 1/4 vote power of townsmen (formerly 1/8). As Chinese citizens are categorized into rural resident and town resident, and the constitution has no stipulation of freedom of transference, those rural residents are restricted by the Hukou (registered permanent residence) and have fewer political, economic, and educational rights. This problem has largely been addressed with various and ongoing reforms of Hukou in 2007.[ citation needed ] The aforementioned ratio of vote power has been readjusted to 1:1 by an amendment to the election law passed in March 2010. [10]
The 1982 constitution included the birth planning policy known as the one-child policy. [11] : 63
The National People's Congress amended Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution. Allow the emergence of the private sector and allow the transfer of the Land tenure. [12]
The Constitution was amended on 14 March 2004 to include guarantees regarding private property ("legally obtained private property of the citizens shall not be violated") and human rights ("the State respects and protects human rights"). The government argued that this represented progress for Chinese democracy and was a sign from the CCP that they recognized the need to adapt to the booming Chinese economy, which had created a growing middle class who wanted private property protections. [13]
Chinese leader Hu Jintao said that "These amendments of the Chinese constitution are of great importance to the development of China [...] We will make serious efforts to carry them out in practice." [13]
The Constitution was amended on 11 March 2018, with 2,958 votes in favor, two against, and three abstentions. [14] It includes an assortment of revisions that further cement the CCP's control and supremacy, including setting up the National Supervisory Commission, [15] establishing a new anti-graft agency, extending the powers of the CCP's graft watchdog, adding Hu Jintao's Scientific Outlook on Development and Xi Jinping Thought to the Preamble of the Constitution, [16] and removing term limits for both the President and Vice President, enabling Xi Jinping to remain president indefinitely. Xi is also the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, the de facto top position in CCP ruling China without term limit. [17] [18]
The concept of ecological civilization building was also added to the Constitution. [19] : 1
The amendments also add the phrases "Communist Party of China" and its "leadership" into the main body of the Constitution. Prior to the amendment, the CCP and its leadership were only mentioned in the preamble. Constitutional preambles are often not legally binding and as the legal applicability of the Chinese constitution is debated, [20] the amendment may be seen as providing a constitutional basis for China's status as a one-party state and formally rendering any competitive multi-party system unconstitutional. [17] Xi "now has the distinction of being the first Chinese leader ever to have his theories enshrined in the constitution during his own lifetime." [5] The leadership of the CCP is now constitutionally enshrined as the "defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics", and therefore it establishes one-party rule as an end-in-itself. [5] Xi says: [5]
Party, government, military, civilian, and academic, north, south, east, west, and center, the Party leads everything.
Though technically the "supreme legal authority" and "fundamental law of the state", the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a documented history of violating many of the constitution's provisions and censoring calls for greater adherence to it. [21] [22]
The constitution stipulates that the National People's Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee have the power to review whether laws or activities violate the constitution. [23] [ non-primary source needed ] Unlike many Western legal systems, courts do not have the power of judicial review and cannot invalidate a statute on the grounds that it violates the constitution. [24]
Since 2002, a special committee within the NPC called the Constitution and Law Committee has been responsible for constitutional review and enforcement. [23] [ non-primary source needed ] The committee has never explicitly ruled that a law or regulation is unconstitutional. However, in one case, after media outcry over the death of Sun Zhigang the State Council was forced to rescind regulations allowing police to detain persons without residency permits after the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) made it clear that it would rule such regulations unconstitutional. [25]
The Open Constitution Initiative was an organization consisting of lawyers and academics in the People's Republic of China that advocated the rule of law and greater constitutional protections. It was shut down by the government on July 14, 2009. [26]
In early 2013, a movement developed among reformers in China based on enforcing the provisions of the constitution. [27] [28]
In 2019, Ling Li of the University of Vienna and Wenzhang Zhou of Zhejiang University wrote that "the constitution appeals to [the CCP] because it does not provide solutions to fundamental issues of governance. Instead, such issues are kept out of the constitution so that they can be addressed by the Party through other regulatory mechanisms outside of the constitutional realm." [29]
In China, politics functions within a communist state framework based on the system of people's congress under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with the National People's Congress (NPC) functioning as the highest organ of state power and only branch of government per the principle of unified power. The CCP leads state activities by holding two-thirds of the seats in the NPC, and these party members are, in accordance with democratic centralism, responsible for implementing the policies adopted by the CCP Central Committee and the National Congress. The NPC has unlimited state power bar the limitations it sets on itself. By controlling the NPC, the CCP has complete state power. China's two special administrative regions (SARs), Hong Kong and Macau, are nominally autonomous from this system.
Chinese law is one of the oldest legal traditions in the world. The core of modern Chinese law is based on Germanic-style civil law, socialist law, and traditional Chinese approaches. For most of the history of China, its legal system has been based on the Confucian philosophy of social control through moral education, as well as the Legalist emphasis on codified law and criminal sanction. Following the Xinhai Revolution, the Republic of China adopted a largely Western-style legal code in the civil law tradition. The establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 brought with it a more Soviet-influenced system of socialist law. However, earlier traditions from Chinese history have retained their influence.
The premier of China, officially the premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, is the head of government of the People's Republic of China and leader of the State Council. This post was established in 1911 near the end of the Qing dynasty, but the current post dates to 1954, five years after the establishment of the PRC. The premier is the second-highest ranking person in China's political system after the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party /president, and holds the highest rank in the civil service of the central government.
The Central Military Commission (CMC) is the highest military leadership body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC), which heads the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the People's Armed Police (PAP), and the Militia of China.
The general secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount leader of the PRC.
The Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party has 55 articles and its contents describe the program of the party, as well as its organizational structure and party symbolism.
The 1954 Constitution of the People's Republic of China was adopted and enacted on September 20, 1954, through the first session of the First National People’s Congress in Beijing. This constitution was amended and formulated on the basis of the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which served as a provisional constitution in 1949, and is the first constitution of the People's Republic of China. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China is the fundamental law of the People's Republic of China and has the highest legal effect.
The Law of the People's Republic of China, officially referred to as the "socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics," is the legal regime of China, with the separate legal traditions and systems of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.
The government of the People's Republic of China is based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's congresses. This system is based on the principle of unified state power, in which the legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), is constitutionally enshrined as "the highest state organ of power." As China's political system has no separation of powers, there is only one branch of government which is represented by the legislature. The CCP through the NPC enacts unified leadership, which requires that all state organs, from the Supreme People's Court to the President of China, are elected by, answerable to, and have no separate powers than those granted to them by the NPC. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP. The CCP controls appointments in all state bodies through a two-thirds majority in the NPC. The remaining seats are held by nominally independent delegates and eight minor political parties, which are non-oppositional and support the CCP. All government bodies and state-owned enterprises have internal CCP committees that lead the decision-making in these institutions.
The vice president of China, officially titled the vice president of the People's Republic of China, is the deputy to the president of the People's Republic of China, the state representative of China.
The chairman of the Central Military Commission is the head of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the People's Armed Police (PAP) and the Militia. The officeholder is additionally vested with the command authority over China's nuclear arsenals.
The system of people's congress under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the form of government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), and is based on the principle of unified power, in which all state powers are vested in the National People's Congress (NPC). No separation of powers exists in the PRC. All state organs are elected by, answerable to, and have no separate powers than those granted to them by the NPC. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP.
The Constitutional history of the People's Republic of China describes the evolution of its Constitutional system. The first Constitution of the People's Republic of China was promulgated in 1954. After two intervening versions enacted in 1975 and 1978, the current Constitution was promulgated in 1982. There were significant differences between each of these versions, and the 1982 Constitution has subsequently been amended several times. In addition, changing Constitutional conventions have led to significant changes in the structure of the Chinese government in the absence of changes in the text of the Constitution.
The chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress is the presiding officer of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC), which is the permanent body of the National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislature of China.
The succession of power in China since 1949 takes place in the context of a one-party state under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Despite the guarantee of universal franchise in the constitution, the appointment of the Paramount leader lies largely in the hands of his predecessor and the powerful factions that control the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
The National People's Congress (NPC) is the highest organ of state power of the People's Republic of China. The NPC is the only branch of government in China, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs from the State Council to the Supreme People's Court (SPC) are subservient to it. With 2,977 members in 2023, it is the largest legislative body in the world. The NPC is elected for a term of five years. It holds annual sessions every spring, usually lasting from 10 to 14 days, in the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
The president of China, officially the president of the People's Republic of China, is the state representative of the People's Republic of China. On its own, it is a ceremonial office and has no real power in China's political system. While the office has many of the characteristics of a head of state, the Constitution of China does not define it as such. However, since 1993, the post has been held by the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission, who is China's de facto leader.
The National Supervisory Commission is the highest supervisory and anti-corruption authority of the People's Republic of China. Formed in 2018 by an amendment to the Constitution, the Commission holds the same constitutional status as that of the State Council, of the Supreme People's Court, and of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
The 2018 National People's Congress, or the First Session of the 13th National People's Congress, was held in March 2018 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China. The session opened on 5 March and concluded on 20 March. Major state positions were elected in this session.
Community of common destiny for mankind, officially translated as community with a shared future for mankind or human community with a shared future, is a political slogan used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to describe a stated foreign-policy goal of the People's Republic of China. The phrase was first used by former CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao and has been frequently cited by current General Secretary Xi Jinping. As the term's usage in English has increased, "shared future" has become more frequently used than "common destiny," as the latter arguably implies a predetermined path. The phrase was included in the CCP Constitution in 1997, and the preamble of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China when the Constitution was amended in 2018.
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