A Comprehensive Analysis of the Legitimacy Boundaries of Professor Zhao Hong's Proposal for Sealing Public Order Violation Records at Peking University Based on Marxist Jurisprudence and Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law

Abstract

The newly revised Law of the People's Republic of China on Penalties for Public Order Violations introduces a "system for sealing public order violation records," with the sealing of records for acts such as drug use sparking intense public debate. Zhao Hong, a researcher at Peking University Law School, has systematically articulated several key arguments in multiple media outlets in defence of the sealing system. These include: "Drug use constitutes an administrative offence rather than a criminal act"; "Sealing records embodies the legal system's civilised approach to tolerance for error and rehabilitation"; and "Opposition to governing society through ancient-style branding methods akin to facial tattooing." This article meticulously reconstructs his principal arguments while introducing Marxist legal theory, Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law and key anti-drug directives, formal logic and argumentation theory, alongside comparative Western jurisprudential experience concerning "criminal record sealing/expungement" to conduct a multidimensional critical analysis of his discourse. The research indicates: on the one hand, Zhao Hong's conceptual distinctions between "public order offences versus criminal offences" and "sealing versus expungement" possess a certain enlightening significance, and formally align with contemporary international trends towards "stigma removal and reintegration promotion". On the other hand, his argumentation exhibits significant blind spots in terms of class analysis, the people's stance, and the overall security perspective: it inadequately exposes the class structures and inequalities underlying drug issues; lacks a holistic grasp of the tension between "people's security" and "individual rights"; and insufficiently internalises Xi Jinping's requirements for "zero tolerance" in drug control, coordinating security and development, and adhering to bottom-line thinking (You Quanrong, 2023; Xi Jinping, 2015; Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, 2020). Logically, it extrapolates universal sealing from a minority of minor offences and counters public security anxieties by occupying the moral high ground of "modern rule of law civilisation," exhibiting a structural bias of "substituting risk analysis with moralising rhetoric." From a comparative law perspective, Western legal systems predominantly adopt a refined "tiered-conditional-exceptional" model, excluding acts severely endangering public safety from blanket sealing while supplementing this with rigorous procedures and ex post facto review mechanisms. This paper ultimately proposes that for the sealing system of public security violation records to embody the humanitarian concerns of socialist rule of law within the Chinese context while aligning with the overarching national security outlook and the practical logic of the "people's war" on drugs, it must introduce mechanisms such as tiered sealing, strict exceptions, procedural participation, and dynamic assessment at both legislative and discursive levels. Concurrently, it must theoretically return to the people-centred stance and practice-oriented approach emphasised by Marxist jurisprudence and Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law.

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