From Moral Obligation To Legal Duty

In 1991, The white papers, human rights in China,has clearly pointed out that, “rights to subsistence and development are the most basic rights.of our citizensl”. Just as Aristotle stressed that people should seek to live a happy life based on virtue and Hume pointed out that “the ultimate goal of all human endeavor lies in happiness”,the right to subsistence is a fundamental condition.that is to say,without the right to subsistence,any other rights are unfounded. Marx also pointed out that people’s first historical activity is that the production can meet the material of life. Throughout the human society development,we find that people will be inevitably divided into the shrong and the vulnerable groups in the process of society competition and development, due to the differences of innate and acquired environment. For the valnerable groups, without support,their rights to subsistence will face a great threat or even crisis.How to protect the rights to subsistence of vulnerable groups? Various countries have different approaches in different historical periods,such as mutual-aid and charity.From the salvation historyof a few developed countries,such as Britain,Sweden,American,Japan,it can be found that aid types have experienced a mode transformation from an early,not standard and accidental social charity to a modern,.standard, clear and stable state aid;a shift of government obligation from moral level to legal level;an evolution from the morality of citizens’ rights to subsistence to the legality of citizens’ rights to subsistence and development.Since the ancient times, chinese has had excellent traditional virtues to support people those have no kin and cannot support themselves or troops make up of the old and weak. After the founding of new china,the first file involving rural vulnerable-aid echanism was that “National Program for Agricultural Development from 1956 to 1957”, which specifically stipulated that the most vulnerable groups in rural china,which called “Five Guaranteed people”,as the members who are lack of labor, having no kin and cannot support themselves. Then, the rule of advanced agricutural producers’ cooperative regards the”Five Guaranteed people”,such as the old,the infirm,the weak, the lonely,the widowed and the disabled,as the most vulnerable members and gives them support from five aspects.The establishment and development of the rural vulnerable-aid mechanism attaches great importance to guarantee the survival rights of the weakestand is full of chinese characteristic.The implement of the policy not only shows the respect for the weakest, but also makes the vulnerable groups who struggling under the poverty line feeling the kindness,respect and love of the party,state and society. However,there are some problems during the practice of the policy, which mainly lies in the following aspects :the first one is the legislative effect is not obvious;the second one is the differences of the practice of the provinces and the cities are too big; the third one is the guarantee is not comprehensive;the fourth one is the guarantee is not a standard one; the fifth one is the remedy after the damage of the right is not timely and the relief is hardly to deliver. How to solve the existing problem is not only the practical task which needs the field of theory to think about,but also a practical task of the government authorities.According to the china’s ltraditional patriarchal ethics, the country’s aid is the embodiment of the political ideas: the benefit,benevolence and compassion for the people,which means the superior authorities,treat nationals as their own children. Mutual assistance between the residents advocated by country reflects the ethical and moral responsibility of helping the vulnerable groups. The country gives grace to the nationals though the mutual assistance,by which the idea of benevolent policy can be promoted, but the assistance has congenital defects of randomness and uncertainty.This kind of a relief pattern obviously cannot adapt to the development of the construction of democraticand legal country.In modern society,only assistance for citizens changes from the moral right into real legal right, and finally becomes the actual rights of citizens,can we realize the well-being of the people and the happiness of mankind. Whether in theory or in practice,ensuring the right to subsistence and development of every citizen is a legal obligation of the state. Identifying and protecting the rural vulnerable inhabitants’ dependent right embodies the legal values of fairness, justice, human rights and others. Like other legal rights, this right indicates that the parties have the right to request when in absence off guarantee and must have legal access to get relief. The 18 th CPC National Congress report clearly pointed out, to strengthen social construction, we must safeguard and improve people’s livelihood and improve the social assistance system. The Third plenary session of the 18 th CPC National Congress emphasizes again to simultaneously promote the development of urban and rural minimum livelihood guarantee system, and to set up a sound and reasonable scheme for the determination and normal adjustment of social security system benefiting all kinds of personnel.Professor Fu Zitang proposes that, in the modern society, the optimum state for all levels of government managing social work should be the construction of rule of law-type social governance mode.Taking the rural social assistance as a political task requires the government to improve relevant legislation and govern according to law. The state should uplift the effectiveness level of legislation,and urge the various provinces and cities as soon as possible to make the supporting regulations, rules and to promote laws and regulations relevant to the vulnerable-aid system.We must practically carry on effective supervision to the relevant government departments’ performance,and strengthen accountability. When the rural vulnerable inhabitants’ dependent right suffers damage, the judicial approaches,such as administrative reconsideration, administrative litigation and civil litigation, can ensure the right to subsistence of the most vulnerable gtoups in rural area.Improving and implementing the rural social assistance mechanism to ensure the society’s most valnerable groups’ rights to subsistence, is benefit to avoid the stereotype that “every step of civilization accompanies further inequality”.It also has great significance to promote the development of china’s human rights progress, to stimulate fairness and justice of the whole society, to forward the comprehensive well-off society and to realize the “chinese dream” of great rejuvenation of the chinese nation.