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Journal to promote understanding of China law launched

The first issue of a quarterly publication aimed at promoting better and wider understanding of the legal system in China is published today (Monday).

The China Law Quarterly, compiled by the China Law Unit of the Legal Policy Division, Legal Department, focuses on legal issues in China, including administrative, civil and criminal law. It also discusses developments in Hong Kong, to advance understanding of the territory's legal system in China.

Better mutual understanding and appreciation of the two disparate legal systems and maintenance of channels of communication will be most important especially after 1997 under "One Country Two Systems".

The first issue of the Quarterly examines the legislative headway made in China in 1994 and the People's Procuratorate.

It also has an article on the views of Professor Chen Guangzhong, Head of the Chinese Legal System Research Institute, ex-President of China University of Political Science and Laws, on the present position and developmental trends of the criminal justice system of China.

In his inaugural editorial of the Quarterly, the Solicitor General, Mr Daniel Fung QC, wrote that China's recent proposal in its new Five Year Plan to entrench the rule of law so as to found a socialist legal nation released a juridical seismic disturbance of the highest order.

"Conceptually, it marks a radical departure from a 4,000 year-old tradition of government by a combination of moral suasion and coercion exemplified by resort to a body of ethics, convention, custom and penal law," he said.

Coupled with the quantity of legislation passed over the past five year, he noted, the quality of the output warranted attention.

This was reflected in the passage in March of the new Criminal Procedure Law which introduced for the first time into Chinese jurisprudence the concepts of presumption of innocence, placing the burden of proof on the state, restricting the right of the state to impose administrative detention, and incorporated into Chinese law certain notions of common law criminal adversarial jurisprudence.