NPCSC Solicits Public Comments on Three Draft Laws (with Brief Content Summary): September 7, 2017 (UPDATED)

Update (September 13, 2017): China Law Translate has translated the draft revisions to the Law Against Unfair Competition (linked below).

After releasing the draft revisions to the People’s Court Organic Law and the People’s Procuratorates Organic Law for public comments on Monday, the NPCSC is now soliciting public opinions on three additional laws.

The comments period for the following two laws will end on September 24—i.e., it lasts only 20 days, which signals the NPCSC will almost certainly consider and pass the two bills at its next session in late October.

  1. Law Against Unfair Competition (Draft Revision) (English translation) 反不正当竞争法修订草案二次审议稿
  2. Standardization Law (Draft Revision) 标准化法修订草案二次审议稿

The comments period for the third draft law, Tobacco Leaf Tax Law (烟叶税法草案), will run till October 6. The tax rate is 20%.

Only PDF Chinese versions are available at this time. Officials explanations are included in the PDFs.

Continue reading “NPCSC Solicits Public Comments on Three Draft Laws (with Brief Content Summary): September 7, 2017 (UPDATED)” →

NPCSC Solicits Public Comments on Draft Revisions to Organic Laws of Courts and Procuratorates (UPDATED)

Update (September 7, 2017): China Law Translate has translated the two draft laws. Links are available in the text below.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is now seeking public comments on the following two draft laws from September 4 to October 3:

  1. People’s Courts Organic Law (Draft Revision) (English translation) (人民法院组织法修订草案)
  2. People’s Procuratorates Organic Law (Draft Revision) (English translation) (人民检察院组织法修订草案)

Officials explanations are included in the PDFs for Chinese versions.

The draft revision of the People’s Procuratorates Organic Law is identical to the version leaked a few days before, which we summarized in this post. The NPCSC has also posted an “authoritative explanation” (in Chinese) of the draft revisions.

To submit comments online, please refer to these instructions. The dropdown list for “Occupation” (职业) includes a new first item called “Judicial workers” (司法工作者); the original one is changed to “Employees of other state organs” (其他国家机关工作人员).

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.

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29th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Passes New Laws, Institutes New National Legal Profession Qualification Exam

The 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its 29th session last Friday. Regarding legislation, it passed a National Anthem Law and a Nuclear Safety Law, revised the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Promotion Law, and amended eight laws to replace the current national judicial exam with a unified national legal profession qualification exam.

Continue reading “29th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Passes New Laws, Institutes New National Legal Profession Qualification Exam” →

Draft Revision of Procuratorates Organic Law Leaked

On Saturday, the WeChat public account “刑法库” published what it claims to be the draft revision (“Draft”) of the People’s Procuratorate Organic Law (“Law”)—along with an accompanying explanation prepared by the NPC Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee (“Committee”)—that is due to be reviewed by the NPCSC this week. For various reasons not elaborated here, we believe the Draft is authentic.

The Draft is dated August 18, 2017, when the Council of Chairmen convened to set the dates and agenda for the NPCSC session this week. Because draft laws aren’t subject to revision between a Council of Chairmen meeting and the ensuing NPCSC session, the version of the draft revision we expect the NPCSC to release after this week’s session should be identical to the Draft.

Here is the Draft in PDF, with the explanation attached. An English translation is not yet available, but we’ll summarize the changes made by the Draft—which are not necessarily new in practice—in bullet points below. Please refer to this post for background information on the ongoing process to revise the Law.

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29th Session Watch Pt. 1: NPCSC to Consider Revisions of Laws Organizing China’s Judicial System

The Council of Chairmen met on August 18 and decided that the 29th—and fourth last—session of the 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will take place from August 28 to September 1. The agenda proposed by the Council of Chairmen is explained below.

Continue reading “29th Session Watch Pt. 1: NPCSC to Consider Revisions of Laws Organizing China’s Judicial System” →

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.

Continue reading “Likely Developments Surrounding the Draft National Anthem Law (with Translation)” →

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)” →