The first three decades of legal reforms in the People’s Republic of China (1978/1979-2008/2009)

Abstract

This paper outlines the current problems of the different levels of Chinese administrative reforms implemented in the first three decades from 1978–1979 to 2008–2009. The discipline of legal sinology is a relatively new scientific field in Hungary and we have adopted its methods in the research leading to this study. The first and second parts of the study are based on the grounds of the most modern historical sources on the antecedents of the reforms. The third part of this work analyses the reform of the State Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. The most important result of this process was the recognition and protection of basic human rights under the State Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. The fourth part highlights recent administrative reforms from period to period. The administrative reform included the reform of the State Council (Government of the People’s Republic of China), as a result of which the number of the staff of the State Council diminished from 51,000 to 16,7...