The Ethical Study Of Public Security's Enforcing The Law

A solution of all sorts of contradictions and conflictions in contemporary society needs that public security enforces the law. To enforce the law is a power that laws entrust to public security officers, and it also is a bounden duty of them. By cracking down on illegal activities and crimes, public security officers have defended civil rights, protected public interests and constructed a good social environment of public security. But bad even odious actions of very few public security officers have brought extreme harm to citizens, people are afraid of and hate bitterly these public security officers who knowingly violate the law and their moral conducts are odious, they are very dissatisfied with those public security officers who enforce inactively the law and their moral conducts are bad. In order to make that enforcing the law is both legal and moral, we should strengthen an ethical study of enforcing the law of public security.This dissertation starts from determining role of public security, has defined duties that public security officers should carry out, has revealed intrinsic ethical nature of public security's enforcing the law, and concluded logically the conclusion that a ethics of public security's enforcing the law is not an individual morality or professional morality but institutional ethics, exactly it is an ethics of institutional realization in an ethics of institutional operation. On the basis of this view, this dissertation has constructed theoretical frame of ethics of public security's enforcing the law, namely ethical ideas that should be possessed by public security officers when they deal with their objects and tasks, main moral principles that should be observed in their activities of enforcing the law, a morality or legitimacy of means of enforcing the law, and moral character that should be possessed by policeman.The logical premise or basis of establishing conclusions of anethical study of public security's enforcing the law is to prove that public security's enforcing the law has itself ethical quality. For this, at first, this dissertation must exactly define the role of public security. I think, public security is not used to resolve contradictions among ourselves and the enemy; but is used to resolve contradictions among the people. Decided by this, a role of public security should be defined to the role that it is both an organization of enforcing the law and a department of service. Enforcing the law is a legal duty of public security; nevertheless, the service is a real essence of public security. In fact, this definition of the role of public security is a definition of duty of public security. The duties that should be fulfilled by public security can divide two kinds: the first is a duty of public security on the whole; the second is a duty of policeman being an individual. The duty of public security on the whole is to punish illegal activities and crimes and protect the people, namely a duty of enforcing the law and serving. The duty of policeman has also two kinds, the first is a duty of policeman to organizations and the superiors, its essence is a duty of management; the second is a duty of policeman to citizens, its essence is a moral duty. These two kind duties are consistent, but the fundamental duty is a duty to citizens. The duties that should be carried out by public security, mean that public security's enforcing the law has its ethical nature, this ethical nature is jointly decided by the three factors of qualities of laws and powers of accorded by public security's enforcing the law and moral acting of subjects of enforcing the law, this ethical nature in particular show that public security's enforcing the law is both a way of defending civil rights and a means of realizing public interests.The ethical ideas of public security's enforcing the law is not only a reasonable motive and guiding force of public security officers' enforcing the law, but also a standard judging that their enforcing the law has or not has moral reason. These ideas include an idea of order, an idea of human right and an idea of service. The order is an orderlystate of social life developed and realized on the historical law of society, and is a supreme good pursued by the poeple. The concrete contents of idea of order are that citizen are safe, relations are harmonious and society is orderly, it requires that public security officers can't enforce the law following their inclinations, can't replace the real order with an imaginary order, and should maintain the real order with their actual actions. The idea of human right is an idea possessed by certain social organizations and individuals that should respect and should not infringe upon others' due rights by any reason. The human right is not that human right meant by theorists of natural rights, not that human right said by theorists of legal rights, and not that human right defined by moral determinists, but it is decided by social life in itself. Human rights include basic human rights and non-basic human rights. Human basic rights are the most elementary rights that man should have and must realize. Human non-basic rights are secondary rights that man should have, or man positive rights for improving the quality of their lives. Public security officers' protection of human rights is not confined to legal rights, but a protection to man's basic rights (including basic rights of violators and criminals) and individual's rights infringed. The main contents of idea of service are an idea of public servants, an idea of duty and an idea of devotion, its core is "taking people as foundation", the idea of taking people as foundation is a fundamental content of an idea of service. Thus, public security officers should seriously examine closely their own definition of function and serving ability.The moral principles of public security's enforcing the law include concretely a principle of courtesy, a principle of justice, a principle of efficiency and a principle of correcting mistakes. The courtesy of public security's enforcing the law is a state that public security officers according to a system of rules of certain society make its way and attitude of enforcing the law to be realization, corresponding to this, the principle of courtesy has mainly three moral requirements ofestablishing reasonable ideas, controlling strictly emotions and improving the way of enforcing the law. The justice of public security's enforcing the law includes a justice of entity and a justice of procedure, in the condition of not giving condition to the two kinds justices, public security officers may reasonably have prior to choice the justice of procedure. Its moral claims are mainly four aspects that public security officers don't be their own judges, prohibit doing arbitrarily things, don't permit neglecting agent's moral quality and equality and so on. The moral requirements of principle of efficiency mainly are these five aspects: to pay less, namely asking that organizations of public security make disposing from decreasing casualties of policeman as possible and accomplishing smoothly concrete tasks of enforcing the law; to be efficacious, including legalization and accuracy; to be in time; to have beneficial result, meaning public security officers' role for maintaining orders of public life and realizing public interests by their enforcing the law. Correcting mistakes mean activities of which certain subjects according to certain principles and norms and by the reasonable ways, correct public security officers' violating laws in the course of their enforcing the law and the bad effects caused by these actions. Correcting mistakes must satisfy three premises, namely there are facts of tort, foundations of laws and legal procedures. The principle of correcting mistakes includes a principle of rectifying, a principle of amending and a principle of compensating. That to handle mistakes done by public security officers in the course of their enforcing the law is or not just and reasonable, mainly is not taking that the punishment for public security officers of being subjects of tort is or not accurate to be a standard, but is taking that the compensation for citizens or social groups of being damaged. The compensation is a making up to or providing relief to agents whose rights are violated, it includes both personal compensations of public security officers and compensations of a country. The personal compensations of public security officers can divide into a compensation of making-up and a compensation ofpunishment. Differentiating from the compensation of making-up that has only a function of making-up, the compensation of punishment has three functions of making-up, sanction and prohibition.Public security's enforcing the law is a process unifying an end of enforcing the law and a means of enforcing the law. The end of public security's enforcing the law should be good, good end of enforcing the law decides a moral reasonability of public security's enforcing the law, but a goodness of the end of public security's enforcing the law can't decide everything, it still needs a coordination of the means of enforcing the law which conforms with morals. That the means of public security's enforcing the law conform with morals is just a properness and morality of the means of enforcing the law, this don't imply that public security officers shouldn't use compulsory means or armed means, nevertheless, it implies that, in the premise that have to use compulsory means or armed means, we should do moral choice, so as to choose those armed means which will decrease or avoid personal injury and damage of property of agents and other masses. There are three conditions that make means of public security's enforcing the law be proper and moral, the first is to strengthen an outside control on choices of public security's enforcing the law, the second is to intensify inside control on choices of public security's enforcing the law, the third is to ask policeman to consciously do moral choices of enforcing the law. The bases on which policeman morally choose means of enforcing the law or factors that should be considered by them have four factors of law, moral, opposites and situations. Since policeman have a power of choosing and using armed means according to laws, then, this means he has free jurisdiction. However, policeman have only free jurisdiction in the aspect of skill (namely using compulsory means or armed means of which degree), in the aspect of morals he has no free jurisdiction.Decided by that the role of definition of public security officers and the ethics of public security's enforcing the law are a kind of...