NPCSC Session Watch: E-Commerce Law, Judicial Reform & Militarized China Coast Guard (UPDATED)

UPDATE (June 19, 2018): On Tuesday (June 19), it was revealed that the State Council  had submitted a draft amendment to the Individual Income Tax Law (个人所得税法) to the ongoing NPCSC session. This amendment came as a surprise because it was only a preparatory project in the NPCSC’s 2018 legislative plan. State media on Tuesday also released the Ministry of Finance’s explanation of the draft amendment. We expect to publish a summary of the draft after it is released for public comments.

In addition, the NPCSC will not vote on the E-Commerce Law at the end of the current session. We thus expect it to return for a fourth and final round of deliberation by the end of 2018, likely in August or October.

The Council of Chairmen decided on Monday (June 11) that the next NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) session will take place from June 19 to 22. The session will consider three draft laws and two potentially significant draft decisions. A rundown of the agenda follows.

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Scholarship Highlight: Haste and Delay in the Chinese Legislative System

Professor Rory Truex of Princeton University has kindly permitted me to publish the abstract of his recent article, Authoritarian Gridlock? Understanding Delay in the Chinese Legislative System, as the second part of this Blog’s Scholarship Highlight series, which surveys academic scholarship relating to the NPC. This article will appear in a future print issue of the Comparative Legal Studies and is now available online at this link (subscription required). [Disclosure: I provided research assistance to Rory on this article.]

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NPC Calendar: June 2018

The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is expected to convene for its third session later this month. The Council of Chairmen is expected to meet in mid-June to decide on the dates and agenda of the session.

The following draft laws (links to our law wiki pages) have been tentatively scheduled for this upcoming session according to the NPCSC’s 2018 legislative plan:

It is possible that the draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law (刑事诉讼法) would be submitted for another round of deliberation as well. We also expect the State Council to submit one or more amendments to existing laws to implement its 2018 reorganization plan.

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NPCSC Solicits Public Comments on Draft Amendment to Criminal Procedure Law (Trial in Absentia Procedures Translated) (UPDATED)

UPDATE (May 11, 2018): The link to an English translation of the draft amendment is added below.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is soliciting public comments on a new draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law (刑事诉讼法) that it just considered at its session last month. The comments period ends on June 7, 2018. We expect the amendment to pass by late August at the latest.

The original Chinese (PDF) version is available here. An English translation is available on China Law Translate. Its accompanying explanation can be read here.

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NPC Calendar: May 2018

The Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law takes effect on May 1.

We expect the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) to release the draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law for public comments later this week.

The NPCSC has released its 2018 legislative and oversight plans. We have partially translated and analyzed the legislative plan here.

The NPCSC’s next regularly scheduled session will take place in late June.

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NPC Standing Committee Releases 2018 Legislative Plan

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) on Friday released its annual legislative plan for 2018. As usual, the plan is divided into two sections—the first listing specific legislative projects slated for discussion at the NPCSC’s remaining five sessions in 2018, and second setting forth general guiding principles for its legislative work this year. We will discuss only the first part in this post.

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NPCSC Session Watch: Historical Nihilism Crackdown, People’s Assessor System Reform, State Council Reorganization & Shanghai Financial Court

The Council of Chairmen decided on Tuesday that the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene its second session from April 25 to 27. The three-day session will review draft laws and decisions involving increased protection for Communist “heroes and martyrs,” reform of China’s people’s assessor (or lay judge) system, implementation of the State Council reorganization plan, and the Shanghai Financial Court. The Council also approved the NPCSC’s 2018 legislative and oversight plans; we will publish our coverage and analysis after they are released in the coming weeks.

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Recording & Review – Pt. 2: The Demise of “Conditional Arrest”

In the first installment of the Recording & Review series, we presented a comprehensive introduction to the recording and review (R&R; 备案审查) process in the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC). Beginning with this installment, we will examine cases where citizens and organizations successfully challenged the legality of normative documents using the R&R procedure. While these cases might not be new, a close examination of them will still offer us important insight into the R&R system—on how it actually operates and what its limitations are.

In July 2017, the Southern Metropolis reported that the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) had recently discontinued a controversial type of arrest after the NPCSC—more specifically its Legislative Affairs Commission (LAC)—reviewed its constitutionality and legality at the request of Mr. Miao Yongjun, an Inner Mongolian lawyer. Before recounting Mr. Miao’s encounter with the R&R system, we will first briefly introduce the now-abolished type of arrest invented by the SPP.

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NPC Calendar: April 2018

The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is expected to convene its second session[*] in late April. The Council of Chairmen is expected to meet in mid-April to decide on the dates and agenda of the session. The Council is also expected to approve the NPCSC’s 2018 legislative and oversight plans at this meeting. These plans will then likely be released in late April or early May.

The following draft laws may be included in the upcoming session’s agenda (the months when they were last reviewed by the NPCSC are given in parentheses):

  1. People’s Courts Organic Law (Revision) (August 2017) 人民法院组织法（修订）
  2. People’s Procuratorate Organic Law (Revision) (August 2017) 人民检察院组织法（修订）
  3. Rural Land Contracting Law (Amendment) (October 2017) 农村土地承包法（修正）
  4. Securities Law (Revision) (April 2017) 证券法（修订）
  5. Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law (December 2017) 土壤污染防治法
  6. E-Commerce Law (October 2017) 电子商务法
  7. Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law (December 2017) 英雄烈士保护法

[*] It convened its first session on March 21, the day after the 1st Session of the 13th NPC ended. At that session, the 13th NPCSC appointed several deputy Secretaries General, the director of its Budgetary Affairs Commission, the chairman of its Hong Kong and Macau Basic Law Committees, as well as the Vice Chairmen and members of the State Supervision Commission.

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2018 NPC Session: Documents List

The following is a list of all official documents presented to, adopted by, or otherwise related to the 1st Session of the 13th NPC, which concluded last Tuesday (March 20). Xinhua only finished publishing these documents today. Currently, only Chinese versions of these documents are available. Official English translations of four reports (noted below) will become available soon. This post will then be updated accordingly.

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