NPCSC Seeks Public Comments on Draft Personal Information Protection Law, Criminal Law Amendment, Wildlife Protection Law Revision, National Defense Law Revision & Two Other Bills

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is soliciting public comments on the following six bills through November 19, 2020:

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Yangtze River Protection Law (2nd Draft)
长江保护法草案二次审议稿		PDFPDF
Criminal Law Amendment (XI) (2nd Draft)
刑法修正案（十一）草案二次审议稿		PDF
(English)		PDF
Administrative Penalties Law (2nd Draft Revision)
行政处罚法修订草案		PDFPDF
Personal Information Protection Law (Draft)
个人信息保护法草案		PDF
(English)		PDF
National Defense Law (Draft Revision)
国防法修订草案		PDFPDF
Wild Animals Protection Law (Draft Revision)
野生动物保护法修订草案		PDFPDF

English translations will be provided if and when available. All explanatory documents are in Chinese. The NPCSC also reviewed a second draft of the Veterans Support Law [退役军人保障法] and a draft Coast Guard Law [海警法] at last week’s session, but did not also release them for public comments today.

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NPCSC Passes Export Control Law & Biosecurity Law, Updates Patent Law, National Flag/Emblem Laws, Election Law & Minors Protection Law

The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its 22nd session on Saturday, October 17, 2020 and adopted seven bills. We will summarize five of them in some detail below, while briefly noting the other two. The texts of the bills and relevant legislative documents can be found on the individual bill pages linked below.

Continue reading “NPCSC Passes Export Control Law & Biosecurity Law, Updates Patent Law, National Flag/Emblem Laws, Election Law & Minors Protection Law” →

NPC Calendar: October 2020

The Communist Party’s 19th Central Committee will convene for its fifth plenum from October 26 to 29 to discuss recommendations for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2026) and future targets for 2035.

The 13th NPC Standing Committee will convene for its 22nd session from October 13 to 17 and will review the following bills:

The session may also consider a draft revision to the Maritime Traffic Safety Law [海上交通安全法]. For more information, please see this post.

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NPCSC Session Watch: Patent, Export Control, Personal Information Protection, Wildlife Protection & National Defense

On Tuesday, September 29, the Council of Chairpersons decided to convene the 22nd session of the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) from October 13 to 17. The NPCSC’s regular sessions ordinarily take place during the last ten days of a month. This upcoming session is likely moved forward to make way for the Communist Party’s Fifth Plenum, scheduled from October 26 to 29. The NPCSC will review at least fifteen bills at its five-day session next month. A quick rundown follows.

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Analysis of 13th NPCSC Legislative Plan Pt. 2: Statistics

Two years ago this month, the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released its five-year legislative plan (Plan or 5YLP), a blueprint for its legislative agenda through 2023. This Plan, like its previous iterations, includes three categories of legislative projects. Category I projects are relatively ripe and should “in principle” be completed within the 13th NPCSC’s term (ending in March 2023), whereas Category II projects are less so and require additional work. Both Category I and Category II projects are numbered. By contrast, Category III includes a series of unnumbered topics for potential legislation, which was deemed not entirely feasible at the time.

Soon after this Plan was released, we published a mostly qualitative analysis, comparing it with previous Plans and distilling a few themes from it. In this long delayed second (and final) part of our analysis, we will take a primarily quantitative approach, examining the Plan and its five predecessors (the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th NPCSCs’ 5YLPs) from a few different angles.

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NPC Calendar: September 2020

The Resource Tax Law [资源税法] and the revised Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste [固体废物污染环境防治法] take effect on September 1.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is seeking public comments on the following bills through September 30, 2020:

The NPCSC will convene for its next regularly scheduled session in late October.

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Recording & Review: A Reintroduction

In early 2018, we first gave a detailed introduction to “recording and review” (R&R) [备案审查], an increasingly notable aspect of the oversight by the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC). For our purposes here, and generally speaking, R&R is a process whereby various governmental bodies with lawmaking authority record their enactments with the NPCSC, which may then review the recorded legislation on certain grounds and order corrective actions if the legislation does not pass muster.[1] R&R has led to some positive developments in Chinese law since our initial introduction. A few months ago, for instance, it led to the NPCSC’s abolition of “custody and education” [收容教育]—a decades-old extrajudicial detention system targeting prostitution.

The biggest update to the R&R scheme since its inception came last December. That month, the Council of Chairpersons approved the Working Measures for the Recording and Review of Regulations and Judicial Interpretations (Measures) [法规、司法解释备案审查工作办法], which were then quietly released in the NPCSC Gazette’s March issue. This is a noteworthy piece of authority: not only does it supplement the two main governing statutes—the Legislation Law [立法法] and the Law on Oversight by the Standing Committees of the People’s Congresses at All Levels (Oversight Law) [各级人民代表大会常务委员会监督法]—by filling in the procedural gaps, but more importantly, it elaborates on the existing grounds for review and also introduces brand-new ones. We thus would like to take this opportunity to reintroduce the NPCSC’s R&R practice, as now undertaken under these new rules. All citations below are to the Measures unless otherwise indicated.

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NPCSC Seeks Public Comments on Draft Copyright Law Amendment, National Flag & Emblem Laws Amendments, NPC Organizational & Procedural Rules Amendments & Two Other Bills

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is soliciting public comments on the following seven bills through September 30, 2020:

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Copyright Law (2nd Draft Amendment)
著作权法修正案草案二次审议稿		PDFPDF
Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Law (2nd Draft Revision)
预防未成年人犯罪法修订草案二次审议稿		PDF
(English)		PDF
Animal Epidemic Prevention Law (2nd Draft Revision)
动物防疫法修订草案二次审议稿		PDFPDF
National Flag Law (Draft Amendment)
国歌法修正草案		PDFPDF
National Emblem Law (Draft Amendment)
国徽法修正草案		PDFPDF
NPC Organic Law (Draft Amendment)
全国人民代表大会组织法修正草案		PDFPDF
NPC Rules of Procedure (Draft Amendment)
全国人民代表大会议事规则修正草案		PDFPDF

English translations will be provided if and when available. All explanatory documents are in Chinese.

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NPCSC Extends Term of Incumbent Hong Kong Legislature, Authorizes Hong Kong & Macau Lawyers to Practice in Mainland & Approves Two Tax Laws

The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its twenty-first session on Tuesday, August 11. It adopted five bills, most notably a decision allowing the incumbent Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) to continue serving for at least another year after its original term expires next month. We will focus on this decision below and briefly summarize the other bills.

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NPC Calendar: August 2020

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is soliciting public comments on the following draft laws through August 16:

The 13th NPCSC will convene for its 21st session from August 8 to 11 and will review the following bills:

The session will likely also consider a decision dealing with the anticipated vacancy of the Hong Kong Legislative Council after the Hong Kong Chief Executive decided on Friday, July 31 to postpone Council elections (originally scheduled for September 6) by a year. The term of the current Legislative Council will expire on September 30.

For more information, please see this post.

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