February 2011| No. 5 The Historical Evolution of China’s Administrative Compensation System and its Recent Amendments* by YANG Yin A BSTRACT The Law of the People’s Republic of China on State Compensation entered into force on 1 December 2010, after its amendment. In China’s first Constitution(1954), there were fundamental provisions on the administrative compensation system, which were restored later in the Constitution of 1982. In 1989, the administrative com­pensation system was embodied in the Law on Adminis­trative Litigation of the People’s Republic of China. The State Compensation Law was formally enacted and promulgated in 1994, but a series of defects in terms of its legal provisions and practical effect emerged in its subsequent implementation. Amendments were made to the State Compensation Law in 2010, for example, with regard to the imputation principle, the scope of compensation, the procedure of compensation, the rules of evidence, the standard of compensation, the payment of compensation, and time limitations on actions for claims for compensation. The amendments revealed the improvements made in China regarding administrative legitimacy and human rights and the difficulties encoun­tered in the enforcement of the State Compensation Law. 1. T HE O RIGIN AND D EVELOPMENT OF THE A DMINISTRA­TIVE C OMPENSATION S YSTEM IN C HINA The administrative compensation system is a legal system within the framework of which the state provides com­pensation for damages incurred when its administrative subjects, in exercising their functions and powers, in­fringe upon the lawful rights and interests of a citizen, a legal person or organisation, thereby causing them harm. As a key component of state compensation in China, administrative compensation must be studied in close connection with the state compensation system. The original idea of formulating a State Compensa­tion Law in China can be traced back to the period of the Republic of China before 1949.¹ Fundamental provi­sions on state compensation were formulated in the first Constitution of China.² It was a very long time before these provisions in the Constitution were put into effect YANG Yin is Director of the Shanghai Institute for Justice Studies; Professor of Law at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law; and Doctor of Judicial Science at the University of Melbourne, Australia. * Based on a presentation at the Academic Workshop“Legal Issues of Administrative Compensation System“ co-hosted by the Legislative Affairs Office of Shanghai Government, and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Shanghai in August 2010. 1 Handian Pan, a well-known scholar and professor of comparative law, was a student at the College of Law of Dongwu University before 1949. He had this idea when he was teaching Foreign Administrative Law which the author attended at the China University of Political Sci­ence and Law in the early 1990s. 2 It is provided for in Article 97 of Constitution of 1954 that people suffering loss by reason of the infringement of their rights as citizens by persons working in organs of the state have the right to compensation.