The Law of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1979

Abstract

Two days before the founding of the PRC, all laws from the old Republic of China were abolished. The new People’s Republic thus began as a state without any sources of law. In the first years, a few new laws and many decrees were issued; beginning in 1957, the ruling party turned away from the rule of law and governed by means of campaigns in which everyone had to participate. In the early years of the Cultural Revolution, there were hardly any legal rules on which a citizen could rely. A slight normalization, which could be sensed with the opening up of foreign policy in 1971, was hindered by struggles over the succession to the sick Mao. Only after the coup under Hua Guofeng in October 1976 – twenty-seven days after Mao’s death – did economic reform gradually begin, a process which at the same time led to the rule of law in the long term. On the basis of Chinese sources and the author’s own experience, the following article describes the legal developments from 1949 to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 as well as the continuing period without positive law up until 1979.