Profile: Zhang Dejiang: ‘Power should not be aloof from public supervision’ (2)

In this file photo taken on Jan. 17, 2013, Zhang Dejiang addresses a national conference on work safety in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua)

SUPERVISION OF POWER THROUGH THE LAW

"All of our power is bestowed by the people. The foremost duty of the ruling power is to serve the people," Zhang said in a signed article published in 2006.

"Power should never be used to seek personal gain and it should not be aloof from public supervision and restraint," he said.

The CPC should improve its leading role regarding the work of people's congresses and respect their status if it wants to improve the quality of governance and consolidate its ruling status, Zhang once said while serving as Guangdong's Party secretary.

"Adhering to and improving the People's Congress system and giving full play to the functions of people's congresses and their standing committees is of importance to the overall situation of the country's reform, development and stability," he said.

He stressed that people's congresses and their standing committees at various levels should build themselves into genuine local state power organs, which shoulder various functions empowered by the Constitution and the law and keep close ties with the people.

Zhang was born in Tai'an County in northeast China's Liaoning Province in November 1946. He joined the CPC in January 1971. He graduated from the Department of Economics at Kim Il Sung University in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Zhang is married to Xin Shusen, a senior economist and a member of the 11th CPPCC National Committee. They fell in love when they were working as "educated youths" in the countryside. They have a daughter.

Zhang served as vice president of Yanbian University, deputy secretary of the CPC Yanji Municipal Committee and later deputy secretary of the CPC Yanbian Prefectural Committee, Jilin Province. In 1986, he went to Beijing after being appointed vice minister of civil affairs and deputy secretary of the ministry's Leading Party Members' Group.

Zhang served as Party secretary in four provincial-level regions from 1995 until late last year. These regions include the provinces of Jilin, Zhejiang and Guangdong as well as Chongqing Municipality. He also served as vice premier over the past five years.

Before he was elected to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee on Nov. 15, Zhang was a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee for two consecutive terms.

Zhang has repeatedly emphasized the supervisory role of people's congresses during his political career.

"The NPC and its Standing Committee should conduct supervision in a firm and confident manner," he said in 2003, encouraging them to enhance supervision so as to ensure that the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate and their personnel govern by law and ensure justice.

He has repeatedly called on the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate to consciously accept supervision and improve the mechanism of reporting their work to the NPC and its Standing Committee and informing them of major issues.

Moreover, he has called for efforts to improve the supervisory system by setting up a series of power restraint and supervisory mechanisms featuring intra-Party and public supervision as well as supporting the people's congresses and political advisory bodies to carry out their supervisory power independently in accordance with the law.

All these measures aim to put the power bestowed by the country's 1.3 billion people under better supervision and restraint.

Zhang also believes that the deputies to people's congresses, as the general public's spokespersons, should earnestly fulfill their duty and be models of law abidance.

"Efforts must be made to safeguard the deputies' right to know and expand channels for them to get access to information and to understand government affairs," he said.

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