The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its 25th session on Friday, January 22 and adopted four bills. As usual, we will summarize them below in varying levels of detail. As of this post’s publication, the NPCSC has yet to release all associated legislative records, but when it eventually does, the records will be accessible from the relevant bill pages (linked below).
Continue reading “NPCSC Passes Coast Guard Law, Revises Administrative Penalties Law & Animal Epidemic Prevention Law & Establishes Beijing Financial Court”Recording & Review Pt. 7: Constitutionally Mandated Mandarin-Medium Education
Recording & Review is a series that focuses on the NPC Standing Committee’s eponymous oversight process, whereby its Legislative Affairs Commission reviews the validity of various types of normative documents, including local regulations and judicial interpretations. A comprehensive introduction to “recording and review” can be found here, and past installments of this series here.
On Wednesday, January 20, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) heard its Legislative Affairs Commission’s annual report on its efforts in 2020 to record and review the validity of various types of sub-statutory documents, including local regulations and judicial interpretations. In sum, a document will fail review if the Commission deems it (1) unconstitutional; (2) contrary to the Communist Party’s major policies; (3) unlawful; or (4) otherwise “clearly inappropriate.” The Commission will then ask the document’s enacting body to amend or repeal it. This year’s report is particularly notable in that it devotes a full section to discussing how the Commission “proactively and prudently” dealt with constitutional issues in the recording-and-review process. This section mentions three cases, and below, we will focus on one of them, which concerns the language of instruction used by China’s ethnic schools.
Continue reading “Recording & Review Pt. 7: Constitutionally Mandated Mandarin-Medium Education”NPCSC Session Watch: Public Health, Coast Guard, Legal Aid, Wetlands Protection, Education & Workplace Safety
The Council of Chairpersons decided on Tuesday, January 12 to convene the 25th session of the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) from January 20 to 22. The NPCSC used to hold regular bimonthly sessions in even-numbered months, but it seems to have abandoned that routine, after the Communist Party’s recent Five-Year Plan on Building the Rule of Law in China directed the standing committees of people’s congresses to meet more frequently. Ten legislative bills are on the upcoming NPCSC session’s tentative agenda. A quick rundown follows.
Continue reading “NPCSC Session Watch: Public Health, Coast Guard, Legal Aid, Wetlands Protection, Education & Workplace Safety”Communist Party Releases New Set of NPC-Related Reform Goals in First Five-Year Plan on Building Rule of Law in China
On Sunday, January 10, 2021, the Communist Party releases China’s first Plan on Building the Rule of Law in China [法治中国建设规划], for the years 2020 to 2025. According to an unnamed Party official interviewed by Xinhua, the Plan was approved by two top Party institutions: the Central Commission for Overall Law-Based Governance and the Politburo Standing Committee. The Plan is a comprehensive document addressing all aspects of China’s legal reform. Not only does it restate and refine reform objectives laid down since the 18th Party Congress in 2012, it also includes new reform goals. Below, we will focus on four subsections of the Plan that set forth new reform goals relating to the NPC. We will translate the relevant parts of those subsections and supplement with our comments.
Continue reading “Communist Party Releases New Set of NPC-Related Reform Goals in First Five-Year Plan on Building Rule of Law in China”2020 in Review: A Norm-Breaking Year at the NPC
How best to describe 2020? Challenging. Surreal. Exhausting. And for China’s national legislature, norm-breaking. On this last day of the year, we look back, as usual, at the National People’s Congress’s and our work in 2020. To start, we recount those NPC institutional norms that were burned by the dumpster fire that was 2020.
Continue reading “2020 in Review: A Norm-Breaking Year at the NPC”NPC Calendar: January 2021
The following laws take effect on January 1:
- Civil Code [民法典];
- Veterans Support Law [退役军人保障法];
- revised National Defense Law [国防法];
- revised Archives Law [档案法];
- amendment to the National Flag Law [国旗法];
- amendment to the National Emblem Law [国徽法]; and
- Decision on Establishing the Hainan Free Trade Port Intellectual Property Court [关于设立海南自由贸易港知识产权法院的决定] (discussed here).
The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is seeking public comments on the following bills through January 29:
- draft amendment to the NPC Organic Law [全国人民代表大会组织法];
- draft amendment to the NPC Rules of Procedure [全国人民代表大会议事规则];
- draft Rural Revitalization Promotion Law [乡村振兴促进法];
- draft Hainan Free Trade Port Law [海南自由贸易港法];
- draft Anti–Food Waste Law [反食品浪费法];
- draft Anti–Organized Crime Law [反有组织犯罪法];
- draft revision to the Maritime Traffic Safety Law [海上交通安全法]
- draft revision to the Military Facilities Protection Law [军事设施保护法]; and
- draft Law on the Protection of the Status, Rights, and Interests of Military Personnel [军人地位和权益保障法].
Given recent reports that the NPCSC was contemplating Hong Kong-related actions and the fact that it did not hear several routine year-end reports at its recent December session, there is a possibility that the NPCSC would meet for a special session this month.
The NPCSC will convene for its next regularly scheduled session in late February.
NPCSC Seeks Public Comments on Draft Amendments to NPC Organic & Procedural Rules, Maritime Traffic Law Revision, Anti–Organized Crime Law, Anti–Food Waste Law, Two Military Bills & Two Other Bills
The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is soliciting public comments on the following nine bills through January 29, 2021:
| Draft Name | Chinese Text | Explanatory Document |
|---|---|---|
| NPC Organic Law (2nd Draft Amendment) 全国人民代表大会组织法修正案草案二次审议稿 | ||
| NPC Rules of Procedure (2nd Draft Amendment) 全国人民代表大会议事规则修正案草案二次审议稿 | ||
| Rural Revitalization Promotion Law (2nd Draft) 乡村振兴促进法草案二次审议稿 | ||
| Hainan Free Trade Port Law (Draft) 海南自由贸易港法草案 | ||
| Anti–Organized Crime Law (Draft) 反有组织犯罪法草案 | PDF (English) | |
| Anti–Food Waste Law (Draft) 反食品浪费法草案 | ||
| Law on the Protection of the Status, Rights, and Interests of Military Personnel (Draft) 军人地位和权益保障法草案 | ||
| Maritime Traffic Safety Law (Draft Revision) 海上交通安全法修订草案 | ||
| Military Facilities Protection Law (Draft Revision) 军事设施保护法修订草案 |
English translations will be provided if and when available. All explanatory documents are in Chinese. The NPCSC also reviewed a second draft of the Coast Guard Law [海警法], a draft Supervisors Law [监察官法], and a draft revision to the Military Service Law [兵役法] at last week’s session, but did not also release them for public comments today.
Continue reading “NPCSC Seeks Public Comments on Draft Amendments to NPC Organic & Procedural Rules, Maritime Traffic Law Revision, Anti–Organized Crime Law, Anti–Food Waste Law, Two Military Bills & Two Other Bills”NPCSC Passes New Criminal Law Amendment, Revises National Defense Law & Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Law & Establishes Hainan IP Court
The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its 24th session on Saturday, December 26, 2020 and adopted six bills. Below, we will summarize them in varying levels of detail. Contrary to previous Hong Kong media reports, the NPCSC did not take any Hong Kong-related action at its session last week.
Continue reading “NPCSC Passes New Criminal Law Amendment, Revises National Defense Law & Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Law & Establishes Hainan IP Court”NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission Releases New Responses to Legal Inquiries
The NPC Standing Committee’s Legislative Affairs Commission (Commission) is a professional support body that is indispensable to the lawmaking process. We have previously written a profile of the Commission (now a bit outdated). Among its many functions is the relatively obscure authority to respond to “legal inquiries concerning specific questions” [有关具体问题的法律询问] (Legislation Law [立法法] art. 64). Few of the Commission’s responses to such inquiries have been made public. It has issued thousands of them,1 but had made public only about 200 by 2007. It had altogether stopped the release since then—until September 2020. Late that month, the Commission quietly posted a new batch of responses to legal inquiries online after a thirteen-year hiatus. Below, we first offer a more in-depth look at the Commission’s legal inquiry responses, before turning to the newly released responses themselves.
Continue reading “NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission Releases New Responses to Legal Inquiries”NPC Calendar: December 2020
The Export Control Law [出口管制法] takes effect on December 1, 2020.
The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene for its 24th session from December 22 to 26. It will review the following bills:
- draft amendment to the NPC Organic Law [全国人民代表大会组织法];
- draft amendment to the NPC Rules of Procedure [全国人民代表大会议事规则];
- draft Yangtze River Protection Law [长江保护法];
- draft Criminal Law Amendment (XI) [刑法修正案（十一）];
- draft revision to the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Law [预防未成年人犯罪法];
- draft Rural Revitalization Promotion Law [乡村振兴促进法];
- draft Coast Guard Law [海警法];
- draft revision to the National Defense Law [国防法];
- draft Hainan Free Trade Port Law [海南自由贸易港法];
- draft Anti–Food Waste Law [反食品浪费法];
- draft Anti–Organized Crime Law [反有组织犯罪法];
- draft Supervisors Law [监察官法];
- draft revision to the Maritime Traffic Safety Law [海上交通安全法]
- draft revision to the Military Service Law [兵役法];
- draft revision to the Military Facilities Protection Law [军事设施保护法];
- draft Law on the Protection of the Status, Rights, and Interests of Military Personnel [军人地位和权益保障法];
- draft decision on strengthening the oversight of state assets management; and
- draft decision on establishing the Hainan Free Trade Port Intellectual Property Court.
For more information, please see this post.
The NPCSC is seeking public comments on the draft Coast Guard Law through December 3, 2020.