On Reform Path Of Correspondence And Visitation System In China

Correspondence and visitation system is a comprehensive system exclusive to China, aiming at protecting the vital interests of citizens in real life. A political system as it is, it's also an administrative legal system. Judging from its development trend, the author tends to favor its reform in the direction as an administrative system. The development and improvement of the system basically require the optimization of legal systems, so that the legitimate and reasonable appeals of citizens will be guaranteed in the form of law. Correspondence and visitation system features a large expansion, covering various aspects including legislation, judicature, law-enforcement and legal remedy. It is fair to say that the system is a legal one with political nature, serving as an integrated system applied most widely in social practice in China. Thus, domestic legal system needs to constantly improve and develop the correspondence and visitation system through inheriting the existing laws and summarizing practical experience. While similar system in foreign countries is drawn upon, domestic legislation, judicature and law-enforcement systems are in need of consistent improvement, contributing to the establishment of a comprehensive system in accordance with the willingness and appeal of Chinese people.The thesis is made up of four parts and the main contents are as follows:1. Historical Evolution of China's Correspondence and Visitation SystemIn this part, traditional Chinese culture and the development and evolution of correspondence and visitation system in China after the founding of the new Republic are discussed. In ancient legal culture in China, "bringing accusation to the emperor" and "going to a statesman known for his integrity and honesty for claim" were deeply rooted in common people's heart and currently still function as a tradition influencing modern people. In ancient times, affected by feudal thoughts, common people always held that there existed a single person or god who was fair and could protect them. Likewise, in order to maintain their rule and resolve conflicts among common people, feudal rulers would formulate corresponding systems to mediate people's behavior. The characteristics boil down to the following points:Firstly, "correspondence and visitation" activities in feudal society have achieved development, characterized by continuity and systematic features. Secondly, feudal emperors'awareness of rule and bureaucratic system has played a certain role in stimulating and restricting "correspondence and visitation" activities. The whole process was permeated with humane atmosphere. Thirdly, correspondence and visitation activities in feudal society showed that common people solved a large number of both their own difficulties and social problems on a whole through "correspondence and visitation". Fourthly, only a single or two bureaucrats in the society enforced laws and pleaded for people, which could bring hope to the common people in difficulty and express their desire for fairness, but could not eradicate the chronic ills in the social system in the least.After the founding of the new Republic, development of correspondence and visitation system can be divided into three stages. The first stage is establishment and development of correspondence and visitation system in the new China (1949-1965). The stage is the primary phase for the system, mainly based on the great attention CPC and state leaders paid to the letters and visits from common people, thus paving a way for the growth and establishment of the system. The second stage is the disruption the system suffered and the carrying out of special ways (1966-1976). During this period, most correspondence and visitation institutions were paralyzed or semi-paralyzed while many were dissolved or disbanded. Some of the institutions were demoted to correspondence and visitation groups. In general, correspondence and visitation work all over China then were caught in the state of backwardness or stagnation. The third stage is re-establishment and development of the system (1976-Now). Once the Cultural Revolution was ended, the number of letters and visits to various correspondence and visitation departments increased by folds. Most appeals demanded redressing of injustice and implementation of policies. After the reform and opening-up, along with the economic growth, correspondence and visitation system has achieved constant development and improvement in face of both opportunities and challenges. Having witnessed over thirty years of the implementation of reform and opening-up policy, correspondence and visitation work now has a new target which is paying high attention to and resolving internal contradictions of people in the new times, to create a favorable environment for the social stability, harmony and realize a sustained and rapid economic development.2. Foundation and Positioning of China's Correspondence and Visitation SystemIn this part, the author mainly analyzes and describes the foundation of current correspondence and visitation system as well as the value and function positing of it. The system has the principle of popular sovereignty as its political foundation, principle of ensuring basic rights of citizens as constitutional foundation and principle of ruling the country by law as social foundation. The three foundations have determined the basic function and nature of correspondence and visitation system. With respect to value positioning of the system, its complex nature has led to vagueness in the value positioning. Basic values, however, could be reflected in three aspects, including social value, political value and administrative value. Regarding function positioning of the system, the function of domestic correspondence and visitation system features extensiveness and interplay character. There is overlapping between remedy function of the system and administrative remedy and judicial remedy while there exists certain overlapping between the supervision function of the system and monitoring supervision, judicial supervision and supervision by the NPC. According to the design of correspondence and visitation system, people generally hope that the main role of the system is to complement rather than take main responsibility. Namely, the system should be adopted to make up for the deficiencies in various systems. Nevertheless, the development directions and real value of the system have deviated, which directly leads to the swelling of correspondence and visitation function and the situation where numerous correspondence and visitation cases cannot be handled properly. It thus can be concluded that the function positioning of China's correspondence and visitation system is in urgent need of transformation.3. Predicament and Analysis of China's Correspondence and Visitation SystemThis part illustrates troubles the system has run into. They're featured by a variety of informal visits and high cost of correspondence and visitation. Such conducts as collective visits, visits to Beijing, harassing visits and aggressive visits have brought great pressure to both the society and the system. If correspondence and visitation departments are to be allocated with more social responsibilities, then it's necessary to endow them with more rights. In the current world, the trend of administrative power of every nation getting expansive is increasingly obvious. What the author means by stating that correspondence and visitation departments should be endowed with more rights is not referring to the expansion of administrative power. Rather, partial power division among the departments shall be conducted in favor of the correspondence and visitation institutions, so that these institutions could deal with some complicated cases timely, thus reducing the incidence of special cases like aggressive visits and collective visits. The author thinks that there're three reasons lying in the predicament of the system. One is the imbalance of rights between administrative body and corresponding people. Second is the vague positioning of correspondence and visitation work. The last one is the unreasonable setting of correspondence and visitation institutions. Therefore, those above-mentioned problems must be handled to improve the correspondence and visitation system.4. The reform path of Correspondence and visitation systemThe fourth part is about the reform path for Correspondence and visitation system in China. In this section, mechanism for people appealing in France and Japan was analyzed and referenced firstly and then four basic functions of Correspondence and visitation system in china were respectively analyzed. In this connection, I put forward four suggestions:First, expanding the communicating accesses of Correspondence and visitation system; second clarifying the specific scope of supervision for petition; third, clearly dividing relief property of inquiry system; fourth, improving Correspondence and visitation system's regulating function. In order to decrease the number of appealing cases, Correspondence and visitation system function must be adjusted and its function division must be optimized at the same time, which enable a scientific and reasonable distribution for partial cases and favor in reducing the pressure on Correspondence and visitation system. It is necessary for reforms on inquiry system that focus on advancing its level and power, improving the platform for dealing with multiple appealing cases, enhancing service quality of the overall staff working for Correspondence and visitation system. The last is upgrading its operation and coordination mechanism. In recent years, many new measures and ideas for petition are put forward not only in academic circle but also in social practice. They can be summed up to the following three points:firstly, developing agent system in Correspondence and visitation which means inquiry can be done by private agent or agent with public right; secondly, encouraging the participation of lawyers in accepting the visiting cases relating to the law or litigation, which integrates law service and consultation into the whole Correspondence and visitation system; thirdly, optimizing petition's procedure by introducing audition. A stable and well-developed processing system ensures a justice in procedure. Based on the traditional audition, Inquiry audition means a stage of the whole process which can be a preparation for final petition or a succeeding relief when petition ended. So its universality and stability very suits the reform needs of inquiry system. Apart from this, integrating audition into the whole Correspondence and visitation system can enhance the government to open the official information and maintain the legal right and interest of petition people.There is an inevitable trend for Correspondence and visitation system's reform and development which aims to verify the legal status of the Correspondence and visitation system by national legislation. As for its owned functions, if we want to increase the rate of ending petition cases and reduce the number of complaint cases, scope of petition acceptation needs to be strictly divided, and cases that can be done with the same ways should be classified rationally, all which must be centered on the main function of petition so that the pressure on visiting system can be reduced. Correspondence and visitation system can not develop without a sound legal system, but also need specific, clear rules for the operation, which enables Correspondence and visitation system to function well in social practice.