Social Sciences in China

Vol. 38, No. 1, 2017

Transforming the Evaluation of the Rule of Law in China

(Abstract)

Qian Hongdao and Wang Zhaoxia

Over the past ten years, China has seen a number of practices exploring the evaluation of the rule of law. It is important that we sum up the practical experience of these evaluations, analyze the problems they encounter, determine their direction nationwide, and put forward constructive ideas. With the issuing of the Decision of the Central Committee of the CPC on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform and the Decision of the Central Committee of the CPC on Promoting a Number of Major Issues of the Rule of Law, evaluation of the rule of law faces a transformation both in theory and in practice. The key points in this transformation are having the right orientation, innovative mechanisms and solutions to tricky issues of quantitative evaluation; summing up evaluation of experience; and elevating evaluation to the level of theory. A precondition for its effective evaluation is a scientific mechanism for evaluating the rule of law; in turn, the key to a scientific evaluation is solving the problems in quantitative evaluation of the rule of law; and the necessary requirements for evaluation practice are summing up evaluation experience and elevating it to the level of theory. The key to innovative mechanisms for evaluating the rule of law lies in implementation of the third party evaluation model and in quantitative evaluation that starts with particular programs.

Keywords: rule of law evaluation, transformation of rule of law evaluation, system of indicators, assessment criteria, national governance