Abstract
The law reforms that have been taking place in China since the late 1970s have marked the beginning of ajourney toward realizing the rule of law in the country. Comprehensive changes in the field of law witnessing during the past two decades have resulted in a more developed legal system not only as to the arena of civil society but the public life as well. However, in the courses of law reform, two significant phenomena have presented themselves and called for attention. First, compared to other branches of the Chinese legal system, administrative law had long been “forgotten” by both government officials and legal scholars. As a practical matter, even in the 1980, almost ten years after the economic and legal reforms, administrative law still had been viewed as ” a forgotten corner” throughout the entire legal system.’ In other words, there have been a gap or a blank spot for almost four decades in the area of administrative law since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Second, while the lav reforms have focused mostly on the construction of a substantive legal system, the legal procedure, which traditionally has long been the weakest part of China’s legal system, has not received enough attention from either legal scholars or the Chinese leaders. However, under the pressures of China’s social transition and active interaction between the state and the society, and especially in the 1990s, as results of China’s continuing economic and political changes, reformers have started to realize the significance of legal procedure as a crucial part of the legal system and an effective mechanism to ensure the integrity of the state and the society, legitimacy of public decisions, and procedural justice and fairness. As a result, for the first time, the Seventh National People’s Congress (NPC), during its second session on April 4, 1989, enacted the Administrative Litigation Law (ALL), under which procedural legality is required in the decision-making context of the administrative procedure. The ALL marked an important step toward the rule of law in the administrative process by requiring administrative authorities to follow administrative procedures. It subsequently has promoted the progression of China’s administrative procedural reform over the past ten years.