Further Enhance People’s Democratic Legal System, Guarantee the Cause of Socialist Construction

In his speech at the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China on September 19, 1956, Dong Biwu comprehensively and systematically expounded the issue of strengthening the people’s democratic legal system. It is included in Selected Works of Dong Biwu published by People's Publishing House in 1985.

This speech profoundly elaborated on the formation and role of the people’s democratic legal system. Dong Biwu pointed out: “Our people's democratic legal system, which is the will of the people under the leadership of the working class expressed through state institutions, is an important tool for the realization of the people's democratic dictatorship in our country.” The Constitution of the People's Republic of China, adopted at the First Session of the First National People's Congress in September 1954, marks a new stage in China's legal system construction.

This speech summarized the basic experience of how Chinese people's democratic legal system works. Firstly, the people's democratic legal system emerged from the struggle to destroy the old legal system. The people's democratic legal system was established and developed on this basis. It is a legal system that truly expresses the will of the people and it serves the people. Secondly, the people's democratic legal system was gradually established in response to the urgent need for national construction. In their practice of protecting their life and production, the people also create their legal system. Thirdly, the people's democratic legal system realistically summarizes the experience of the people's struggle and implements the mass line method. So, it reflects the opinions of the people without separation. Fourthly, the people's democratic legal system has learned from all the experiences from Chinese history and internationally that are beneficial to the people, especially the experience of the Soviet Union.

The people's democratic legal system is also characterized by its adaptability to the time and place, and it takes care of the special situation of each fraternal ethnic region, so that, without contradicting the principle of the Constitution, each autonomous region is fully capable of formulating autonomous and unilateral regulations in accordance with its will.

This speech enumerated the problems in the legal system at that time, profoundly analyzed the historical and social roots of the lack of attention to and compliance with the legal system and proposed to make acting under the law a central part of strengthening the people's democratic legal system. There are two meanings of working in accordance with the law: Firstly, there must be a law to follow. Secondly, it is necessary to comply with the law.