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Luo Haocai, president of the China Society for Human Rights Studies and Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the 10th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), speaking at the 6th Beijing Forum on Human Rights on Sept. 12 2013. [Photo by Fan Junmei/China.org.cn]

How do you do, everyone. In this September, a golden season in China, we are happily gathered together in Beijing to hold the annual Beijing Forum on Human Rights, discussing experiences and achievements in human rights and planning together human rights development.

This session of the Forum is themed with the "Constructing an Environment for Sustainable Human Rights Development". Human rights are not isolated; rather, they are human rights situated in the society, the network interwoven with economy, politics, society, culture and so on, and human rights protection has to depend upon certain interior and exterior environments and institutional arrangement. As early as in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has pointed out, "Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized." The realization of human rights not only involves the claim to rights themselves, but also the demand for such environment as is favorable to human rights development. The major point of our human rights protection is to create an order favorable to the full realization of human rights and build the environment for sustainable human rights development. Both governments and people of all countries are obliged to create the environment and order favorable to the realization of human rights, and guarantee sustainable human rights development.

Now, I would like to express a few of my personal opinions and discuss them with everyone:

First, we should insist on running the country by law and, building a country of governance by law, and providing institutional guarantee for the sustainable development of human rights.

Human rights and governance by law are inseparable, the construction of governance by law not aiming at human rights is blind, and the protection of human rights without governance by law is impossible. On the one hand, human rights protection cannot do without the construction of governance by law. Law establishes the identity of a man as a subject, declares the basic contents of human rights, defines the measures to realize human rights, and set up the mechanisms of responsibility assignment against the infringement of human rights. In a word, it takes the form of the Constitution and laws to guarantee the realization of such basic value objectives of human rights as personal dignity and human value. On the other hand, the construction of governance by law also boosts the constant improvement of human rights protection. Law is the studies of rights, while human rights are the kernel of all rights, and an improved system of human rights protection certainly represents the improvement of law and the progress of governance by law.

Since the last session of the Forum, the system of socialist law with Chinese characteristics has been constantly improved, the construction of governance by law has been pushed forwards step by step, and human rights protection has made progress steadily. In 2013, a series of laws have been formally carried out after amendment, including the Criminal Procedure Law, the Civil Procedure Law, the Law on Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly and the Labor Contract Law, and the deepening of human rights protection has been continued. In the first half of this year, the National People's Congress has also solicited and extensively adopted public opinions for the Draft Amendment to the Consumer Protection Law, the Amendment to the Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China (Second Review Draft) and so forth. Besides, the amendment of the Administrative Procedural Law, which is the basic criterion for "administrative litigations", has been included both into the overall legislative plan of this session of the National People's Congress and its particular legislative plan in 2013. At the beginning of this year, the reform of re-education through labor system has been initiated, and it can be expected that the measures for re-education through labor would be ceased within this year after it is approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. The reform of the petitioning (letters and calls) system is also in the process of exploration, and the petitioning involving laws and lawsuits can be expected to be separated from ordinary petitioning and include the scope of rule by law. Recently, the Political and Judiciary Commission Under the Central Committee of the CPC has proclaimed a guideline for the practical prevention of unjust, false and erroneous cases, reiterated such basic principles in lawsuits as being innocent until proven guilty and the guarantee of lawyers' rights to defense, and specified the demand for quality in handling cases and responsibility assignment.

To respect and guarantee human rights is the solemn declaration of the Constitution of China, and to govern the country by law and build a socialist country of governance by law has also been written into the Constitution as a basic guideline for the governance of the country. Human rights and governance by law are constitutionally consistent. In the future, China will continue to push forward the rule by law from all aspects , integrate the country of governance by law, the government of governance by law and the society of governance by law, boost from all aspects scientific legislation, strict law enforcement, righteous justice and all-round law-observance under the guidance of the Constitution, and take the form of governance by law to boost scientific development, maintain social steadiness and practically guarantee human rights.

Secondly, we should insist on the orientation to people's livelihood, boost social reforms and lay a firm foundation for the promotion of sustainable human rights development.

Social construction, together with economic construction, political construction, cultural construction and ecological civilization construction, ranks among the five important parts which constitute the overall plan of socialism construction with Chinese characteristics. In strengthening social construction, the emphasis should be laid on the guarantee and improvement of people's livelihood, mainly including the most practical issues of interests which most directly concern the people such as education, employment, health care, residents' incomes, social insurance and so forth. The basic requirement and major path are the accelerated reform of the social system. Strengthened social construction is an important part of the construction of environment for sustainable human rights development, and an important guarantee for the harmonious and steadiness of the society.

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