Year: 2017

Draft Supervision Law of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国监察法) Released for Public Comments (UPDATED)

UPDATE (Feb. 23, 2018): The second draft of the Supervision Law is translated here.

UPDATE (Nov. 7, 2017): The comments period has been updated.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) just released the draft Supervision Law (监察法, formerly titled 国家监察法, or State Supervision Law) for public comments. The draft was the version that was first considered by the NPCSC back in June. The comments period runs from November 7, 2017 to December 6, 2017.

The draft is available for download as a PDF document, which we made by copying and pasting the original texts from the NPC website. The full text of the Draft is also reproduced below. The NPC website did not also include an explanation of the draft. An English translation of the draft can be found here.

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A Guide to Supervision System Reform (Redux)

The NPCSC decided last Saturday to extend “pilot” reforms of the state supervision (or anti-corruption) system nationwide. The decision is nearly identical in substance to the NPCSC’s December 2016 decision to first implement supervision system reforms in Beijing, Shanxi, and Zhejiang. The decision on Saturday again prescribes the composition, duties, and powers of the supervision commissions, and lists the legal provisions that will no longer be enforced across China, effectively repealing them. The contents of the Saturday decision are described below, with additional details.

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Explainer: National Anthem Law, New Criminal Law Amendment, and Their Implications for Hong Kong

Reports on Tuesday that the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is considering an amendment to the Criminal Law to prescribe harsher punishment for disrespecting China’s national anthem seem to have taken many by surprise. (They wouldn’t have been if they had been reading our Blog!) Some question the necessity of such a move if the conduct was already criminalized by the National Anthem Law (it was not). Some wonder whether the amendment will be applied to Hong Kong and Macao (it won’t be). Here in this post, we answer a few of such questions on the National Anthem Law, the newest Criminal Law amendment, and their implications for Hong Kong.

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NPCSC to Consider New Criminal Law Amendment, Apply National Anthem Law to SARs & Hear Judicial Reform Reports

The NPC Observer turns one today! Many thanks to our readers, subscribers, and Twitter followers for the amazing past year. By the way, we are now on Facebook—because. . . why not?

UPDATE (Oct. 30, 2017): The finalized agenda and daily schedule of the session are released. One new item—a draft decision to carry out pilots to reform the state supervision system in an additional 28 provinces*—was added to the agenda just a day after the Communist Party announced that it had made such a decision. We will report on the details of the NPCSC decision either tomorrow when the full NPCSC hears an explanation of it or when the NPCSC passes it on November 4.

*The reform will therefore be carried out in 31 of 32 of China’s provincial-level administrative divisions (excluding Hong Kong and Macau).

Buried in the pre-19th Communist Party Congress propaganda frenzy was a bland official report on the Council of Chairmen’s latest meeting on October 16. The Council decided that the 30th—and third last—session of the 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) would take place from October 30 to November 4, consistent with our earlier predictions. This post is a (fairly detailed) rundown of the items on the Session’s agenda.

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Translation: National Anthem Law of the People’s Republic of China

The following translation also appears on China Law Translate, with any additional changes made by users of that website.

Order of the President of the People’s Republic of China
No. 75

The National Anthem Law of the People’s Republic of China, having been adopted by the 29th Session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress on September 1, 2017, is hereby promulgated, to take effect on October 1, 2017.

Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China
September 1, 2017

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Supreme People’s Court Reports to NPCSC on the Operation of IP Courts

In August 2014, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) passed a decision establishing three intellectual property courts (IP courts) in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou—a reform set forth in the 2013 Third Plenum Decision. On the basis of that decision, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) further delineated the jurisdiction of the three IP courts in October 2014. (The SPC’s provisions are not available in English, but the China IPR blog has analyzed them in detail in this blog post, which links to a helpful chart outlining the IP courts’ jurisdiction.) The three courts started accepting cases at the end of 2014.

Pursuant to the NPCSC’s decision, the SPC reported to the NPCSC on the first three years of operation of the three IP courts in late August. The purpose of this blog post is to highlight some statistics and developments mentioned in the report and also to flag it for other commentators to conduct further parsing.

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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.

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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.

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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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