略论中国人的权利意识问题

Chinese People's Awareness of Right

权利意识是否浓厚,关系到法治国家建设的成败。但总体上看,中国人的权利意识仍很淡薄,民众与官员都不怎么把权利当回事,不论是自己的权利还是别人的权利。这就使权利难以保障,因为权利的性质决定了,权利不主张即是放弃,权利需要积极去主张和维护。人们对权利的消极态度究其根源,无疑与悠长文化传统的负面影响相关,即传统的人治、礼治文化与权利意识是相抵触的。因此,要实现法治国家的建设目标,就要警惕传统文化的负面影响,转变观念,象西方著名法学家所主张的那样:认真对待权利,为权利而斗争。

People＇ s consciousness of right has relations to failure or success of the nation＇ s law construction. However, the Chinese people have little consciousness of right, no matter it is the right of others or theirs, which makes it difficult to insure one＇ s right, for the nature of right tells that no claiming means giving up. Undoubtedly, people＇ s weak awareness of right originates in the negative impact from the long traditional culture. In other words, the Man governance or the Li governance in tradition is conflicting against the awareness of right. And so we must avoid the negative impact from the long traditional culture in order to realize the goals of building a law-governed nation, do as some famous jurists said, taking rights seriously, and struggle for the rights.