Abstract: Making legislative decisions based on the social effects of legislation is an inevitable requirement of scientific legislation. Economic and social environment, institutional environment, subject factors, technical factors, etc., all imperceptibly shape the social effect of legislation, making it present a complex aspect which could be described as the coexistence of positive effect and negative effect, macro effect and micro effect, and long-term effect and short-term effect. Standardized legislative evaluation, with the foresight of rational decision-making, is often unable to give more information about the social effects of legislation beyond the established vision of the legislative goal. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce legislative social effect argumentation to discover and test the social effects of legislation in the process of democratic participation, and to reach the greatest consensus based on argumentative deliberation. All kinds of disputes or difficulties arising around the social effects of legislation must be fully considered and weighed in the process of legislative deliberation. The legislative decision made based on the social effect of legislation is not a mechanical legal text addition or deletion, but a kind of decision-making contingency that calls for systematic thinking: either seeking solutions to social problems outside the legal system or planning legislative schemes within it. 

Keywords: scientific legislation; social effect of legislation; legislative argumentation;  demonstration of legislation; legislative strategy

Author: Wang Yi, Ph.D. in Law, associate senior editor, CASS Institute of Law; associate professor, Law School of the University of CASS;

Source: 2 (2025) China Legal Science.