Xiamen makes strides in building law-based government

On Aug 25, 2020, Xiamen in East China's Fujian province stood out from 1,847 cities and counties across the country to become one of China's first demonstration cities for building a law-based government, an important milestone in its effort to promote rule of law.

As was indicated by the title, the city made noticeable progress in subjecting government actions to legal review last year.

Deepening law-based administration

Xiamen laid a solid institutional foundation last year for its social and economic development by making legislative improvements in areas ranging from IPR protection to environmental protection, promoting implementation of China's first Civil Code, deepening the reform of delegating powers, enhancing regulation and strengthening public services, as well as sorting out normative documents concerning its business environment.

In an effort to strengthen its supervision mechanism for administrative law enforcement, Xiamen's judicial department reviewed 121 randomly-selected administrative penalty and licensing cases, and added exercise of the discretionary power over administrative penalty to the checklist of its special administrative law enforcement inspection campaigns in 2020.

The city also toughened qualifications of administrative law enforcers, advanced administrative reconsideration reform, and incorporated the appearance of leading officials in administrative trials into the performance assessment related to law-based administration. 

Greater public participation in social governance

In 2020, Xiamen further boosted public involvement in the legislation procedures, convening at least 10 meetings for experts to express their opinions on specific legislative projects and plans.  

Meanwhile, people's mediation organizations across the city mediated over 15,000 disputes last year, reaching a success rate of 99.9 percent. Its administrative mediation institutes also addressed 49,000 of the more than 68,000 disputes mediated it accepted, a success rate of 72 percent. 

The city also mobilized lawyers to set up 52 legal service teams which devoted their legal expertise to both COVID-19 control and enterprises' work resumption.

Promoting law popularization

During last year's week-long Constitution publicity campaign, the city's judicial department made great efforts to introduce the Constitution to people from all walks of life. The judicial department of Siming district, in particular, hosted China's first rule of law-themed micro film exhibition, collecting over 1,300 works from around the country.

The city also attached importance to legal education for state functionaries. In 2020, 7,330 state functionaries took legal knowledge tests while 821 leading cadres took such exams before taking office. It also actively institutionalized the attendance of state functionaries as observers at court trials.

Upgrading public legal services       

Last year, Xiamen's judicial department continued to consolidate various legal services ranging from lawyers' services to mediations in order to meet people's growing needs.

The department worked with the city's federation of industry and commerce to conduct massive legal risk evaluations for private enterprises. During the campaign, the authorities visited 437 industrial associations and enterprises, advised enterprises 5,000 times, and put forward over 800 suggestions for them. 

To let people in need experience fairness and justice, the city continued to lower eligibility for legal aid services. And in November 2020, its judicial department and procuratorate joined hands to strengthen services for underage victims of crime.