CCTV news: On April 25, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a series of press conferences on the theme of “China’s Decade” to introduce the achievements and progress of legislative work in the new era. At the meeting, Xu Anbiao, member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and deputy director of the Legal Affairs Committee, introduced the remarkable features of the legislative work in the past ten years.
Xu Anbiao introduced that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has regarded legislative work as the basic work of comprehensively governing the country according to law, making overall planning and promotion, and making decisions and deployments. Guided by socialist thought, thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping’s thought on the rule of law, adhere to the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee on legislative work, fully implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, adhere to the connection between legislative decision-making and reform decision-making, integrate socialist core values into legislation, and further promote Legislation is made scientifically, democratically, and in accordance with the law, constantly improving the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, promoting development with good laws, ensuring good governance, and making new progress and achievements in legislative work. The legislative work of the past ten years has five notable features:
First, the amount of legislation has increased substantially. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, until the 34th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress, which closed on the 20th of this month, the National People’s Congress passed the amendment to the Constitution, the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee formulated 68 new laws, and amended 234 laws. , passed 99 decisions on legal issues and major issues, made 9 legislative interpretations, and 292 currently valid laws. What does this data show? That is, when we compare it with the previous decade, the number of newly enacted laws has increased by 1/3, the number of amended laws has increased by nearly 2 times, and the number of passed decisions on legal issues and major issues has increased by 1.5 times. So, the number is greatly increased.
Second, the legal system is increasingly complete. The compilation and completion of the new China’s first important law named after the code – the Civil Code. Basic, comprehensive, and overarching laws in important fields such as national security, health, and public culture have been formulated and promulgated one after another. Laws in important fields such as ecological environment, education and technology have been systematically and comprehensively revised, and emerging fields such as network information and biosecurity have been revised. Breakthroughs have been made in legislation, the overall promotion of domestic and foreign-related rule of law, and the strengthening of foreign-related legislation. Significant progress has been made in the improvement of the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, and the systemic, holistic, and synergistic nature has been further enhanced.
Third, legislative forms are more diverse. Coordinate the use of various legislative forms such as legislation, reform, abolition, interpretation and compilation, and give play to the important roles of different legislative forms in improving the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics. “Li” means to make new laws. Just said there are 68. “Reform” means to amend and improve existing laws. There are also comprehensive revisions, which we generally call revisions, and partial revisions, usually revision decisions, and individual revisions, which are packaged revisions for similar issues, or a package revision. “Abolition” means to abolish regulations and articles that do not meet the requirements of economic and social development. For example, to meet the requirements of social governance in the new era, legal regulations and systems related to reeducation through labor and custody and education have been abolished. “Interpretation” refers to the interpretation of the law to further clarify the meaning, application, and scope of the provisions of the law. “Codification” means to integrate, modify, and supplement the interrelated laws in a certain field to form an organic whole. In this decade, these forms have been fully utilized and played an important role. In fact, in our legislative work, there are also legislative forms such as authorization decisions and reform decisions.
Fourth, the legislation vividly reflects the people’s democratic demands in the whole process. Continuously expand the channels and channels for citizens to participate in legislation in an orderly manner, ensure that legislative items are determined, and the voices of the people can be heard in every link such as drafting, deliberation, and adoption of draft laws, and ensure that legislation reflects the common will and demands of the people. A very important aspect here is to strengthen and improve the work of publicizing the draft law to the public for comments. The drafts we are now submitting to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for deliberation will, in principle, be published on the NPC website for public comment. In the past, the draft law, which was only the first trial, was published online for comments. Now, after the second trial, after the draft has been revised and improved according to the opinions of various parties, it is published again for comments, and the public can also take a look. This draft law has been reviewed and revised. After that, what was changed, and whether our concerns were responded to. This is a relatively large development. Another point is that through various forms such as spokespersons, we provide feedback to the society on the opinions put forward by the public and the status of research and processing. We have carefully studied and considered these opinions. Now, it has become the norm for draft laws to be publicly solicited again after the second instance. In the past ten years, a total of 205 draft laws have been publicly solicited on the NPC website, with more than 1.19 million participants and more than 3.5 million opinions. Another very important aspect is to build a “through train” for the grassroots people to participate in national legislation – establishing grassroots legislative contact points. At present, we have set up 22 grass-roots legislative contact points in relevant provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and more than 130 draft laws have been solicited through the grass-roots legislative contact points. In November 2019, General Secretary Xi Jinping went to Shanghai Hongqiao Sub-district to inspect and guide the work, which is the grass-roots legislative contact point we established earlier. General Secretary Xi Jinping had a cordial exchange with the residents who were participating in the consultation meeting on the draft law at that time, fully affirming their important role in “getting down to the ground, observing people’s sentiments, and gathering people’s opinions”, and profoundly pointed out that people’s democracy is a whole-process democracy. This is a full affirmation and encouragement for the work of grassroots legislative contact points.
Fifth, the legislative work system and mechanism are more smooth and efficient. The Party’s leadership in the legislative work is strong and strong. The legislative work extends the Party’s leadership throughout the entire process and in all aspects, implements the Party’s theory, line, principles, and policies, promotes adherence to the Party’s leadership into laws and regulations, and strictly implements the system of requesting and reporting to the Party Central Committee , to complete the major legislative projects determined by the Party Central Committee in a timely manner to ensure that the Party’s propositions are transformed into the will of the state through legal procedures. Give full play to the leading role of the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee in legislative work, and play a coordinating role by formulating legislative plans, legislative work plans, and special legislative work plans. Establish special committees and working committees to take the lead in drafting fundamental, comprehensive, and overall important draft laws, and improve systems such as solicitation of legislative projects, argumentation and consultation on adjustment of major legislative interests, solicitation of opinions on draft laws, and evaluation of draft laws before they are passed, and promote the institutionalization of legislative work. , standardized and programmed.
The legislative work in the past ten years has the remarkable characteristics of the above five aspects. This year is an important year for building a modern socialist country in an all-round way and forging a new journey towards the second centenary goal. Our party will hold the 20th National Congress of great and far-reaching significance. In accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee, we will advance the legislative work with high quality and efficiency, and take practical actions to welcome the convening of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.