Likely Developments Surrounding the Draft National Anthem Law (with Translation)

Last month, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) conducted an initial review of a draft National Anthem Law (Draft) (an English translation of which is attached to this post). Much of the media coverage so far has focused on provisions that ban the use of the national anthem at “inappropriate occasions” such as funerals and provide for up to 15 days of detention for “distorted or derogatory” rendition of the anthem, titled “March of the Volunteers.” With only 15 articles, the Draft contains language that is fairly easy to understand. We therefore won’t spend time scrutinizing its content here. Instead, we will take a look at likely developments surrounding the Draft, based on this report by Xinhua.

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NPCSC Solicits Public Comments on Five Draft Legislations: June 28, 2017 (UPDATED)

Update (July 18, 2017): The draft Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law was translated by China Law Translate.

Update (June 28, 2017): The comments period has been shortened by one day, to July 27.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is now seeking public comments on the following five draft laws from June 28 to July 27:

  1. Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law (Draft) (土壤污染防治法草案)
  2. Public Libraries Law (Draft) (公共图书馆法草案)
  3. National Anthem Law (Draft) (国歌法草案) (PDF/Word)
  4. Specialized Farmers’ Cooperatives Law (Draft Revision) (农民专业合作社法修订草案)
  5. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Promotion Law (Draft Revision for 2nd Deliberation) (中小企业促进法修订草案二次审议稿)

The draft Supervision Law (监察法), however, was not simultaneously released. But we expect the NPCSC to release it for public comments at least once at a future date.

All linked files are in Chinese. All are PDF documents except otherwise indicated.

We will publish an English translation of the National Anthem Law shortly, along with some other relevant information.

To submit comments and find more information on these bills online, please refer to these instructions. The NPCSC has also posted “authoritative explanations” (in Chinese) of the draft Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law and draft revision to the Specialized Farmers’ Cooperatives Law.

Comments can also be mailed to the NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission (全国人大常委会法制工作委员会) at the following address:

Chinese: 北京市西城区前门西大街1号 邮编：100805
English: No. 1 West Qianmen Avenue, Xicheng District, Beijing 100805

Please clearly write “[BILL NAME IN CHINESE]征求意见” on the envelope.

If you like this Blog, please consider following us on Twitter (@NPC_Observer) or via email (use the “Follow Blog via Email” widget in the sidebar).

 

28th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Passes New Intelligence Law, Amends Clean Water Law, and Empowers Procuratorates to File Public Interest Lawsuits (UPDATED)

(Update: June 29, 2017): The NPCSC released full texts of the amended Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, Administrative Litigation Law, and Civil Procedure Law.

(Update: June 28, 2017): China Law Translate has translated the National Intelligence Law.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its bimonthly session this afternoon with (among other actions taken) the passage of three bills: a new National Intelligence Law, an amendment to the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, as well as amendments to two procedural laws to formally grant the procuratorates (or prosecutor’s offices) nationwide authority to initiate public interest litigation.

Continue reading “28th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Passes New Intelligence Law, Amends Clean Water Law, and Empowers Procuratorates to File Public Interest Lawsuits (UPDATED)” →

Analysis: NPC Standing Committee’s 2017 Oversight Plan

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released its 2017 oversight plan (Plan) in early May, and this post presents an overdue analysis of it. Here, we will not list each and every project in the Plan (unlike our previous analysis of the NPCSC’s 2017 legislative plan), but will instead offer a few observations about the Plan. A partial translation of the Plan, including more detailed descriptions of the projects, can be found at the end of this post.

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28th Session Watch Pt. 1: National Intelligence, Soil Pollution, National Anthem, and Others on Agenda—But No Sign of State Supervision (Yet) (UPDATED)

Update (June 22, 2017): According to the agenda and daily schedule of the 28th Session released today, a draft Supervision Law (监察法, formerly known as 国家监察法, or State Supervision Law) has been submitted to the NPCSC, as we predicted below. The NPCSC is scheduled to hear an explanation of the draft on Friday. We therefore will not have more information about the draft until then.

In addition, the NPC Law Committee has recommended that the NPCSC pass the National Intelligence Law and the amendment to the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law. We expect both to be approved on July 27, the last day of the Session. We also expect the ongoing session to adopt draft amendments to the Administrative Litigation Law and the Civil Procedure Law—submitted by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to empower people’s procuratorates nationwide to initiate public interest litigation. Such a process is currently being piloted in 13 provinces.

The 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene for its 28th Session on June 22 through 27, the Council of Chairmen decided this afternoon. This post is a customary summary of the Session’s agenda as announced in this press release.

Continue reading “28th Session Watch Pt. 1: National Intelligence, Soil Pollution, National Anthem, and Others on Agenda—But No Sign of State Supervision (Yet) (UPDATED)” →

NPCSC Holds High-Profile Symposium Commemorating 20th Anniversary of Hong Kong Basic Law

Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Basic Law), was passed by the National People’s Congress (NPC) in April 1990 and went into force seven years later on July 1, 1997—the day when China resumed exercise of sovereignty over the city. On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the Basic Law, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) on May 27 held a high-profile symposium commemorating the occasion, featuring speeches by seven guests, including NPCSC Chairman Zhang Dejiang, who is also in charge of Hong Kong and Macau affairs as a member of the Communist Party’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee. It is not uncommon for the NPCSC to mark the anniversaries of laws it deems important, though yesterday was the first time that it provided transcript of the entire event. The speeches contained many salient points, and below we note the highlights of each in turn.

Continue reading “NPCSC Holds High-Profile Symposium Commemorating 20th Anniversary of Hong Kong Basic Law” →

Scholarship Highlight: Law Enforcement Inspections—The NPCSC’s Weapon to Ensure Law-Based Administration?

The agenda of the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) session last month included an inconspicuous item: reviewing the State Council’s response to the report on the law enforcement inspection of the Environmental Protection Law; this report was previously discussed by the NPCSC last November.

What is an law enforcement inspection (执法检查)? Here, taking the opportunity of the first edition of our new, non-regular series, Scholarship Highlight, we present an overview of this supervisory measure of the NPCSC that is sometimes overlooked. We will also take a closer look at a recent example mentioned above: the law enforcement inspection of the Environmental Protection Law last year. Through this post, we wish to explore whether the NPCSC’s law enforcement inspections can act to further “law-based administration” (依法行政) by the State Council.

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Legislation Review: China to Revamp Standardization System

Closely examine the packaging of any Chinese consumer product and you will most certainly find in the fine print the letters “GB”—the symbol for compulsory national standards. Sitting at the top of China’s standards hierarchy, the “GB” standards are formulated by the State Council and compliance with them is mandatory. Local governments and private entities may also adopt standards, and in many cases compliance is merely voluntary. Together, these standards prescribe uniform technical requirements for diverse fields ranging from purified water bottling to pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Yet, as the Chinese Government itself has recognized, the current standardization system—established in the late 1980s with the enactment of the Standardization Law (1989 Law)—no longer meets actual needs and has even slowed development. In an effort to modernize the system, earlier this year the State Council submitted to the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) a draft revision to the Law (Draft), which the NPCSC reviewed last month. The Draft essentially aims at restructuring the existing standardization system, and below we provide a summary of its core content.

Continue reading “Legislation Review: China to Revamp Standardization System” →

NPCSC Solicits Public Opinions on Three Draft Laws: May 16, 2017 (UPDATED)

Update/Correction (May 26, 2017): The comments period for the draft National Intelligence Law now ends on June 4, 2017, NOT June 14. This post originally stated that the Law underwent a second reading at the NPCSC’s April session. This did not happen and we apologize for the mistake.

Update (May 18, 2017): China Law Translate has also translated the draft National Intelligence Law here.

Update (May 17, 2017): The China Copyright and Media blog has posted an English translation of the draft National Intelligence Law here.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is now soliciting public opinions on the following three draft legislations. The comments period currently runs through June 14, but since the NPCSC has yet to officially announce this round of solicitation of public comments on the frontpage of its website, the deadline might be extended. We will announce any change to the comments period here and on Twitter.

  1. Standardization Law (Draft Revision) (标准化法修订草案)
  2. Nuclear Safety Law (2nd Deliberation Draft) (核安全法草案二次审议稿)
  3. National Intelligence Law (Draft) (国家情报法草案)

The hyperlinks above direct to PDF versions of the draft laws, which are currently in Chinese only. We will update this post and make announcements on Twitter if and when the bills become available in other formats or languages.

We have summarized the draft revision to the Standardization Law here. Also, it now seems unlikely that the NPCSC will release the draft revision to the Securities Law for public comments. (But maybe the delay is purely for technical reasons as the bill contains more than 300 articles—who knows).

Click here to submit comments online. Please refer to our guide if you have trouble navigating the online comments system. The individual pages for the bills also contain notes (in Chinese) on their content.

Comments can also be mailed to the NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission (全国人大常委会法制工作委员会) at the following address:

Chinese: 北京市西城区前门西大街1号 邮编：100805
English: No. 1 West Qianmen Avenue, Xicheng District, Beijing 100805

Please clearly write “[BILL NAME IN CHINESE]征求意见” on the envelope.

If you like this Blog, please consider following us on Twitter (@NPC_Observer) or via email (use the “Follow Blog via Email” widget in the sidebar).

NPC Standing Committee Schedules Major Legislations for 2017

The 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) today finally released its much-anticipated legislative and supervisory plans for 2017. Here we will focus on the legislative plan, leaving the supervisory plan for another blog post. According to the 2017 legislative plan, a total of 23 legislative projects are tentatively scheduled (as the plan is subject to change) for the remaining four NPCSC sessions this year, with dozens more listed as preparatory projects. Among them, there is certainly no lack of blockbuster legislations, whether relating to China’s judicial reform, anti-corruption drive, environmental protection, or economic and social development in general.

Continue reading “NPC Standing Committee Schedules Major Legislations for 2017” →