On The Legal Thinking Of Contemporary Chinese Civil Servants

We have established the Socialist System of Laws with ChineseCharacteristics, which is a great progress in the construction of the rule oflaw. However, the practice of the carrying out of the law is not satisfying.This in a certain degree is a result of the traditional way of thinking of thosecivil servants. Some of them merely take law as an instrument, and showlittle respect to it. And as result, they usually take political measures, ratherthan legal measures, to solve the problems they came across, which hasprevented the construction of rule of law in China. To improve this situation,we first need to change their way of thinking so as to make their way ofthinking can serve the need of the development of the rule of law of oursociety. Yet the change of people’s way of thinking is a long task, and couldnot be achieved in one day. This article makes analysis of the existingproblems and their reasons of the way of thinking of those civil servants, andgives advices on how to bring up their legal thinking, aiming to promote theconstruction of rule of law in China.This article is divided into four parts. The first part shows the necessityof cultivating legal thinking of those civil servants in China. Efforts havebeen made in two directions: analysis towards the current polity, and itsrequirements to the construction of rule of law in China, and typical casesstudying.The second part focuses on the true meaning of legal thinking. It firstsummarized those different kinds of definitions of legal thinking in China,and on that basis, it brings up the characteristics and consisting elements oflegal thinking.The third part discussed about the existing problems in the way ofthinking of those civil servants: pan-ethical, pan-political and instrumentalism. An analysis of the reasons and effects of those problemstowards the cultivation of the legal thinking has also been made in this part.The fourth part bring up the advices on how cultivate the legal thinkingof those civil servants, which includes to change the general opinion to lawand to establish the faith to law, to refine the existing laws and regulationsand to improve the quality of the legislation, and to complete associatedinstitutions.