China issues guideline to promote law-based governance

China on Tuesday issued a guideline to promote law-based governance, vowing to build a rule-of-law government by 2020.

To achieve the goal and solve prominent problems in governing in accordance with the law, the country was in dire need of issuing such guidelines to serve as "a blueprint and a roadmap", Xinhua cited a statement from the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council as saying.

A rule-of-law government features scientific functions, statutory rights and responsibilities, strict law enforcement, openness, justice and integrity, while being corruption free, efficient and observing the law at the same time.

The provincial-level governments should list powers and responsibilities openly to the public by the end of 2015 and municipal and county-level governments should do the same by the end of 2016 to make sure that anything the law does not authorise is not done, while all duties and functions assigned by law are performed, the guideline said.

The central government departments establish a list of powers and responsibilities on a trial basis within the next five years.

The government will also create a negative list for market access, deepen reform to further cut red tape, enhance market supervision and environment protection and offer more standardised, equal and statutory public services.

To better constrain and supervise administrative power, the government will set up credit files for civil servants, ensure its audit system covers all public funds, state-owned assets and resources, and official fulfilment of economic duties.

The guideline was issued after the Chinese leadership set building a rule-of-law government as one of the key goals of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in China by 2020.

Aiming to ensure fair and civilized law enforcement, the government will work out a system to ensure the entire process of law enforcement is recorded and speed up the establishment of a unified online supervision platform, according to the guideline.