Month: January 2021

NPC Calendar: February 2021

The Coast Guard Law [海警法] takes effect on February 1.

The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is expected convene for its 26th session soon after the week-long Spring Festival holiday, which runs from February 11 to 17 this year. The Council of Chairpersons is expected to meet before the holiday to decide on the agenda and dates of the session. The NPCSC will mainly prepare for the 2021 NPC session at its upcoming meeting, but may still review one or two legislative bills. Possible candidates include:

The NPCSC is seeking public comments on the following bills through February 25:

NPCSC Seeks Public Comments on Draft Legal Aid Law, Wetlands Protection Law, Family Education Law, Education Law Amendment, Workplace Safety Law Amendment & Two Other Bills

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is soliciting public comments on the following seven bills through February 25, 2021:

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Legal Aid Law (Draft)
法律援助法草案		PDF
(English)		PDF
Military Service Law (Draft Revision)
兵役法修订草案		PDFPDF
Physicians Law (Draft)
(i.e., revision to the Licensed Physicians Law)
医师法草案		PDFPDF
Wetlands Protection Law (Draft)
湿地保护法草案		PDFPDF
Family Education Law (Draft)
家庭教育法草案		PDF
(English)		PDF
Workplace Safety Law (Draft Amendment)
安全生产法修正草案		PDFPDF
Education Law (Draft Amendment)
教育法修正草案		PDFPDF

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

To submit comments online, please refer to this guide. 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:

北京市西城区前门西大街1号 邮编: 100805
No. 1 West Qianmen Avenue, Xicheng District, Beijing 100805

Please clearly write “<Draft Name in Chinese>征求意见” on the envelope.

NPCSC Passes Coast Guard Law, Revises Administrative Penalties Law & Animal Epidemic Prevention Law & Establishes Beijing Financial Court

Photo by CFP via CGTN.

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

Photo by Xu Qin (Zuma Press), via WSJ

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” →