Professor Xu Xianming, President of the China University of Law and Political Sciences.

“Substantial” changes have taken place in China’s human rights conditions, according to Professor Xu Xianming, president of the China University of Law and Political Sciences. As a member of the Law Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s highest legislature, he is known for his contributions to improvements in the country’s legal system.

In an interview with Human Rights magazine, Professor Xu Xianming listed what he chose to call the “five most important changes” in China’s human rights conditions:

First of all, changes have taken place in the prevalent concept of human rights. Human rights, he noted, constitute the essence of rule of law. “By striving to build a society under the rule of law,” he said, “we aim at a full realization of human rights.”

In China, the professor continued, both the government and the people are becoming increasingly keen to human rights. “Enhancement of citizens’ awareness of human rights is bound to boost the confidence of all sectors of society in rule of law,” he conceded.

Secondly, state organs have changed their concept of governance, realizing that protection of citizens’ rights is the ultimate purpose of their work, the point of departure, the basic guiding principle and the end result for their work.

“Exercising government for the people,” says the professor, means effort to realize human rights through government. As a political commitment, it obliges the government to work in the interest of the broadest masses of the people. “Exercising government for the people” also comes as a legal guarantee for the rights to which the broadest masses of the people are entitled. To be more specific, this legal guarantee is ensured through legislation, law enforcement and judicature.

Legislation, Professor Xu Xianming noted, represents the will of the people in the form of laws made by state organs through a process of reviewing, screening and optimizing the people’s demand for rights. Enforcement of laws has the ultimate purpose of realizing the people’s rights. Judicature, in essence, is intended to strengthen the people’s rights through judicial compensation and relief. To put it in simple language, it means use of judicial measures to set things right for the people when their legitimate rights are infringed upon.

All organizations and individuals must abide by the law in doing things, and on no account must they go against it. By demanding that people be law-abiding citizens, the professor said, we mean to encourage the people to truly enjoy the rights to which they are legally entitled. Judicial oversight means to ensure realization of such rights. Work of state organs, in its entirety, serves the same purpose. This is the most fundamental change in the concept and values of government, which has taken place since respect for and protection of human rights entered the Constitution.

Thirdly, changes have taken place in the designing of the various systems. Professor Xu noted that human rights are now taken as the point of departure in China’s institutional designing. He cited the example of the Law on Citizens’ Personal Identification Cards, which he helped formulate in his capacity as a member of the Law Committee of the NPC Standing Committee. The law is intended to facilitate participation by citizens in social activities and protect their personal rights in the process. In other words, he said, the law helps realize the citizen rights of the Chinese people.

Another example he cited is the revision in 2004 of the Law on Prevention and Treatment of Communicable Diseases. Thanks to the revision, he said, rights of patients and other people in state of public health emergency are legally prescribed for the first time.

The most typical example, however, is the Administrative Permission Law. Under this law, if a person has committed an illegal act nonetheless permitted by the government, the person may eventually shift the responsibility for the act onto the government.

Fourthly, judicial changes have taken places in the interest of China’s human rights cause. Judicial protection of human rights has become an indispensable part of China’s legal system. For example, the legal rights of criminal suspects and convicted criminals are prescribed in Chinese laws. “Such rights brook no violation,” Professor Xu said.

Fifthly, breakthroughs have been made in study of human rights theories. “Thanks to this,” he said, “our human rights experts are in a position to conduct dialogue with their Western counterparts, and we have made good contributions to the study of questions of originality in relation to human rights.”

Since 2004, he said, human rights textbooks, treatises and monographs have been published under a huge number of titles. Human rights-related laws have become an important part of curriculum for schools of higher learning. “We are witnessing one more high tide in study of human rights theories, following the first in the early 1990s,” he conceded.

While affirming these achievements, Professor Xu admitted that the country’s human rights conditions still have much room for improvement. “The Constitution now embraces the concept of human rights,” he said, “but the constitutional rights to subsistence, development and environment are yet to be clarified in laws.”