When "the party leads everything" and "rule the country according to law" are written into the same system: the real question is who has the ultimate interpretation.

On August 12, the Central Committee of Discipline published another institutional article about the "Governance of the Party according to the rules", in which a sentence is worth to take out separately from a large number of political terms: "Our party is the highest political leadership force, the party is the leader of everything".

If we only discuss the organizational discipline of the Communist Party of China itself, this phrase has no legal complexity.Any political party can formulate its own party charter and internal rules, and require Party members to abide by them.

The problem arises in the next step.

At the same time, the Communist Party of China demanded that the system of regulations within the Party be organically linked to the state's "rule of law" system, and that the Party have a leading position in legislation, law enforcement, justice and the governance of the country as a whole.

Here there is a logical question that cannot be eliminated by political slogans: who is higher than whom?

The core meaning of the modern rule of law is not that society has many legal provisions, but that all powers, including those in power, are bound by the law.When the president, prime minister, ruling party or police violate the law, the courts can make judgments based on the law that are not ruled by political orders.

The logic of the CPC design is different.

The party was first identified as the highest political leadership force, then led by the party to legislate, ensure law enforcement, support justice, and then through party regulations to bind party members' cadres.The system, of course, can form a large number of systems, and can also punish a large number of corrupt officials, but it did not establish a final judge independent of the party.

Contradictions are not apparent when the political goals of the party are consistent with the legal procedures.

The real test occurs when the two conflict.

A lawyer asked to meet the parties in political-sensitive cases, the Criminal Procedure Law stipulated the right of defence, but the case agency also restricted the intervention of lawyers on the basis of national security and political requirements; a reporter investigated local officials, the legal form of protection of normal expression, but propaganda and public security system believes that reporting affects stability; a religious group in accordance with the law advocates freedom of belief, the party's religious policy requires religious organizations to first accept political leadership.

Who makes the final decision?

In a truly independent court system, the answer should be the law.

In the Communist Party system, the party's principle of leading the work of political law has given a political answer in advance.

In an August 12 article, the Commission proposed that power should be placed in the cage of the system. This phrase sounds very close to the modern balance of power. But one must continue to ask: Who holds the key to the cage?

If the people who formulate the rules, the people who implement the rules, the people who supervise the rules are ultimately within the same party leadership system, then the so-called "self-supervision" no matter how strict, there is an essential difference from external balancing.

This also explains a long-term seemingly contradictory phenomenon in China.

More and more laws.

There are more and more regulations within the party.

Disciplinary supervision is becoming stronger.

There are still many officers who have been investigated and punished.

Lawyers, journalists, religious figures and dissidents in political affairs still find it difficult to find a judicial body that can stand independently against the state power.

This is not because China has “no laws”.

It is precisely because China has a large number of laws, but has always retained a political principle that works above the law—the leadership of the Party.

The real issue of the rule of law is never the Communist Party’s reluctance to abide by its own rules.

Rather, when the Communist Party itself becomes a party in the dispute, is there any other institution that can say “no” to it?

As long as there is no answer to this question, the combination of "rule the country according to law" and "rule the party according to rules" in any way, it is ultimately impossible to circumvent the same systemic facts:

The supreme political power, at the same time, has the power to explain its own borders.