Study On Assessment Criteria Of A Government Ruled By Law

As an emerging governance mode, a government ruled by law is acknowledgedwidely by countries all over the world.“Small government, big society” becomes theoptimum state of the government. In China, building a government ruled by law is asystematic project, however, it is hard for government at all levels to master thecriteria and the degree since the government ruled by law is value assessmentcriterion with strong subjectivity. Thus building a government ruled by law is blind inpractice and more often it can not draw attention from administrative leadership,meanwhile, it focuses too much on slogans, practicability and interests. As a result,the building of a government ruled by law is in trouble, which is lack of scientificsupervision and evaluation mechanism. Therefore, the measurable criteria are neededto measure the realization degree and supervise the completion process.Study on rule of law index came into being based on the degree of the rule oflaw of a society, which originates from the study in western countries. The study ongovernance mode in China is relatively late, thus it is a correct and necessary path toborrow advanced research achievements and governance modes abroad to build theassessment criteria of a government ruled by law that fit in China. Through buildingscientific and objective assessment criteria of a government ruled by law, tasks ofadministration by law of governments at all levels and government sectors can beguided and the realization degree of legalization of government and governmentsectors can be measured, which makes the building of a government ruled by lawcontrollable, expectable and assessable.The study on assessment criteria of a government ruled by law is in full swinghome and abroad. Western countries take two modes on the assessment of agovernment ruled by law, one is value assessment mode, for example, the rule of lawindex released by the World Bank in2005includes the will of observing the law andthe degree of trust in law of people in the country, if the laws and regulations are fair,if the laws and regulations can be expected, etc. The condition of rule of law isassessed by percentage, if the percentage is high, then it means that the rule of law is of high degree. The other is system mode, which focuses on the administration by lawof the government. For example, the rule of law index of the World Justice Project isdetermined by the conditions that if the government adheres to administration by lawand if the government system and operating procedure are in accordance with theobjectives of governing the society by law.The study on rule of law index in Hong Kong leads the standardization study onthe assessment of a government ruled by law in China. Afterwards, the rule of lawindex released by Yuhang District, Hangzhou City is the first one in mainland China.Together with that in Hong Kong, these two models accelerate the establishment ofassessment criteria of local governments ruled by law in China to varying degree.Shenzhen City and Hubei Province began to sign agreements with the State Councilconcerning building a government ruled by law successively and studied andestablished index system of building a government ruled by law actively, which set anexample for the study of assessment criteria of a government ruled by law. ThenSichuan Province, Guangdong Province, Beijing City, etc. followed and establishedthe applicable assessment criteria system, which make the study on the assessment ofa government ruled by law a trend in China.The objectives of study in this paper are to establish the scientific and effectiveassessment criteria of a government ruled by law applicable for Changchun Citybased on the advanced experience and to guide municipal government departmentsand county-level (district-level) governments to build governments ruled by law in acorrect way, avoiding detours and mistakes.Based on the basic theory of a government ruled by law, this paper analyzes theinternal value demand of a government ruled by law, that is, a government ruled bylaw must be a limited, service, faithful, open, responsible, effective and cleangovernment. Through comparative study method, this paper introduces the rule of lawindex in the World Justice Project, Yuhang District, Hangzhou City and Hong Kongas well as the building indicators of a government ruled by law in Shenzhen City andHubei Province and analyzes the common problems in current assessment criteria of agovernment ruled by law in China. With this study as basis, the principles, levels andspecific contents of establishing assessment criteria of a government ruled by law in Changchun City are illustrated, then the selection of assessment subjects, assessmentprocedure and the calculation of assessment scores are demonstrated and themeasures that can guarantee the completion of assessment are put forward in order toestablish an effective and standard system on the assessment of building agovernment ruled by law in Changchun City.This paper is innovative because it borrows the assessment subjects of rule oflaw index abroad and the selection of assessment subjects in Hong Kong and YuhangDistrict, Hangzhou City, which breaks through the inherent assessment mode inChina which focuses on assessment within government and explores theestablishment of an assessment and evaluation system in which there is a neutral thirdparty who is not effected by executive power involved in to enhance the reliability,credibility and authoritativeness of assessment.