Judicial Reform Needs Ten Types of Awareness (Part I)
　　Judicial reform, an important part of the reform of the political system, has entered a crucial stage focusing on “the design of top priorities”. In order to better promote the reform of the judicial system in the next phase, we need to stick to ten types of awareness.

　　1. The awareness of laws

　　Law is an important concept in Marxist philosophy. It refers to the intrinsic and essential connection between things, which is independent of man’s will. Philosophical laws have many different levels. At the top are the three major laws, namely the law of universal connection and eternal development, the law of the unity of opposites, the law of negation of negation, each of which includes some sub-laws. For example, the law of the unity of opposites includes the identity of contradiction and struggle, internal and external factors, the universality and particularity of contradiction, the uneven development of contradiction, the principal contradiction and the secondary contradictions, the major and minor aspects of contradictions, etc. We need to follow these philosophical laws no matter what we do, including judicial reforms. For instance, according to the “key theory”, judicial reform should also focus on the priorities and key issues. Due to the differences in duties and powers of units at different levels, in problems encountered by different functional departments, in local judicial environments, and in situations and tasks at different development stages, the focus of judicial reform is to make scientific and proper decisions based on the specific locale and time. The new round of judicial reform deployed by the CPC central committee is aimed at addressing the institutional obstacles that have constrained the play of the superiority of the socialist judicial system. It starts from the people’s most concerned and expected issues, and identifies four key reform tasks, namely optimizing judicial functions and powers, implementing criminal policies combining leniency with rigidity, strengthening the building of the political-legal functionaries, and ensuring the provision of political-legal expenditure.

　　Apart from these general laws, judicial reform also needs to follow the more specific “reform law” and “judicial law”. We have accumulated a lot of positive and negative experience over the past more than three decades of reform and opening up (particularly in terms of laws), which is worth generalizing and sublimating by people studying the science of reform. Comparing with other types of reform, such as the reform of the economic system, the reform of the administrative system, the reform of the social system, the reform of the cultural system, judicial reform has both commonality and particularity. Commonality means all these reforms belong to “the overall reform of China in a specific period of time”. Particularity means that justice is fundamentally different from economy, politics, society and culture. The intrinsic attributes of justice, such as impartiality, independence, neutrality, in conformity with the law, professionalism, passiveness, ex post facto, individual cases, judgment of disputes, authoritativeness, free of corruption, determine that judicial reform needs to follow the judicial law, and should cross the bottom line. To some extent, judicial reform is to reform the system and working mechanism that are not in line with the judicial law and hinder the sound development of justice. The ways of heaven are impartial, so should the judicial reform law be. With the scientific attitude, we should give full play to the initiative, so as to fully grasp the general law of reform and understand the specific laws of justice, hence best combine these laws with China’s national condition and give full play to the superiority of socialist judicial system.

　　2. The awareness of system

　　Systematology has been fully understood and extensively implemented. The statement of “the fundamental approach of the scientific concept of development is making overall and coordinated plans” made at the 17th Party Congress embodied the essence of systematology. It includes four major tasks. First, coordinating urban and rural development, coordinating regional development, coordinating economic and social development, coordinating the harmonious development between man and nature and coordinating domestic development and opening up; second, coordinating central and local relations; third, coordinating personal and collective interests, regional and overall interests, and current and long-term interests; fourth, coordinating domestic and international situations. All these coordination requires systematic approaches. In terms of reform, the fifth plenum of the 17th Central Committee of the CPC further comprehended and implemented systematology. Based on the summary of previous reform experience and the new requirement of deep reform, it emphasized the reform of the design of top priorities and the overall plan, identified the priorities and major tasks of reform, further mobilized the initiatives of all parties, and respected the pioneering spirit of the masses. We will vigorously promote the reform of the economic system, actively and steadily push forward the reform of the political system, speed up the reform of the cultural and social system, and constantly improve the socialist market economic system, so as to ensure the superstructure is more responsive to the changes in the economic development and provide a powerful guarantee for the scientific development.