Preface to China Forum on the Rule of Law
To the north of the Forbidden City and east of Jingshan Hill lays a peaceful courtyard. It is the seat of the Institute of Law of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the most prestigious national institute in China devoted to legal research and legal education. O n this small piece of land, rich in historical splendor and elegance of the New Culture Movement of 1919, flows an inexhaustible spring of Chinese legal theory and rages an inextinguishable flame of the ideal of the rule of law. Since several decades ago, especially since the “ reform and opening u p” in 1978, generations of Chinese legal scholars have been working diligently on this small piece of land and, with their wisdom and painstaking efforts, composed many immortal masterpieces of law that will go down in history.
China Forum on the Rule of Law is a series of books published by the Institute of Law with a view to carrying on the past and opening a new way for the future in the research of the rule of law and promoting the development of the rule of law in China. In this series, we will, on the one hand, republish papers published in China in the past 20 years which are of great historical significance, such as those relating to the discussions since late 1970s on the rule of man and the rule of law, the equality of everyone before the law, the drafting of the new Constitution, and the class nature of the law and those relating to debates since early 1990s on human rights, the legal system under the market economy, ruling the country in accordance with the law, judicial reform, W T O and China, environmental protection, eradication of torture, and abolition of the death penalty. On the other hand, we will edit and publish papers from future research projects and academic seminars, both in China and abroad, which are relatively mature and of sufficiently high academic value.
The law is the norms of order for all mankind and the rule of law a universal ideal of all peoples in the contemporary world. China Forum on the Rule of Law is not limited to the discussion of the legal issues in China, nor will it be monopolized by scholars of the Institute of Law. W e sincerely hope that it w ill be able to provide an opportunity for scholars, experts, as well as readers to freely express their ideas and exchange their views on legal issues, a forum for a hundred schools of thoughts to contend, and a garden for a hundred flowers to bloom.
Xia Yong
6 June 2003