Notes on the Four Translated Documents on Intra-Party Regulations

Abstract

Though the concept of intra-party regulations (党内法规) has a long history in China, it was not until 18th October 2017 that a National Party Congress report adopted it for the first time. In the report to the 19th Party Congress, Xi Jinping made two direct references to ‘intra-party regulations.’ One was when summarising the achievements of 5 years of work since the 18th Party Congress: ‘the reform of the Party building system has been further advanced, and the intra-party regulatory system has been continuously improved.’ The other was when expressing expectations for future work. On the latter, Xi stated a need to ‘strengthen ability to govern according to the law, speed up the formation of an intra-party regulatory system that covers all aspects of Party leadership and Party building, and strengthen and improve the leadership of the Party over state organs of power.’ This background partly explains why the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issued a flurry of intra-party regulations around 2019. Amongst them, in September 2019, it issued the revised Chinese Communist Party Intra-Party Regulation Formulation Regulations (2019 Revision) (《中国共产党党内法规制定条例》), the Chinese Communist Party Intra-Party Regulation and Normative Document Filing and Review Provisions (2019 Revision) ( 《中国共产党党内法规和规范性文件备案审查规定》), and the newly formulated Chinese Communist Party Provisions on the Responsibility System for Intra-Party Regulation Implementation (for Trial Implementation) ( 《中国共产 党党内法规执行责任制规定 (试行)》). These three documents, together with the FiveYear Plan Outline for Central Intra-Party Regulation Formulation Work (2013–2017) ( 《中 央党内法规制定工作五年规划纲要(2013–2017)》) issued in 2013, all appear in translated form in this issue of Chinese Law and Government. In this article, I offer some background and explanation on the four documents.