The 3rd Session of the 13th NPC concluded on Thursday, May 28, after having approved all reports and bills submitted to it for consideration. As usual, we provide below a list of all official documents from this Session. (A few documents are still pending; we will update this post when they are released.)
Unless otherwise noted, all documents are available in Chinese only.
Continue reading “2020 NPC Session: Documents List”UPDATE (May 28, 2020): The NPC adopted this Decision on Thursday with 2878 votes in favor, one against, and six abstentions. Its explanation is available here, and an unofficial English translation is available here. We have updated this explainer in accordance with the Decision’s final text. There are two main changes to the draft: (1) the preamble is longer; and (2) and the scope of authorization under article 6 has been extended to “activities” [活动]—in addition to “conduct” [行为]—that endanger national security. We do not believe the latter change is significant.
Readers would probably know by now that the ongoing NPC session’s agenda includes a new draft Decision on Establishing and Improving the Legal Systems and Implementation Mechanisms for Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region [关于建立健全香港特别行政区维护国家安全的法律制度和执行机制的决定]. This new bill was reviewed once by the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) on May 18 and had been kept a secret until Thursday night. We have studied the draft Decision and its accompanying explanation, and now offer the following explainer in Q&A format, focusing on the Decision’s contents and the legal questions it raises.
Continue reading “2020 NPC Session: NPC’s Decision on National Security in Hong Kong Explained (Updated)”On Friday, May 22, the 2020 NPC session released its agenda and daily schedule of meetings. The Session will open on the morning of Friday, May 22 and close on the afternoon of Thursday, May 28, lasting a total of seven days, the shortest since 1978. The session has not released a full schedule of press conferences; we will update this post when new press conferences are announced. All times below are in Beijing Time (UTC +8:00).
Continue reading “2020 NPC Session: Agenda and Daily Schedule”UPDATE (July 5, 2020): The NPC adopted the Civil Code on May 28 with 2879 votes in favor, 2 against, and 5 abstentions. We have updated this guide (including all citations and quotations) in accordance with the Code’s final text. We also discussed some of the final substantive changes to the prior draft: additions made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are listed under the heading “COVID-19 Update,” while other new provisions are incorporated into the summary itself and are indicated in red.
As the NPC comes into session today to review a draft of the People’s Republic’s first Civil Code [民法典], a legislative marathon will soon come to an end. The Code is a massive piece of legislation. Its latest draft includes 1260 articles, teeming with arcane legal terminology. Thus, if you want to read it for yourself, you might find the task daunting. In this post, we hope to make the Code just a bit more accessible. But our task here is a modest one: we will not (and cannot) do a deep dive into the Code. Instead, we will give a brief overview of the Code’s drafting history, explain its significance, and provide a quick introduction to each of the Code’s subdivisions. We will focus on the new rules in the Code that have caught our attention, as well as issues that have engendered the most heated (sometimes quite public) debates.
All citations to the Code below are to its final version; other sources are not always cited. You can find all relevant legislative documents and prior drafts on this page.
Continue reading “2020 NPC Session: A Guide to China’s Civil Code”On May 1, a decision of the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) authorizing the suspension of certain statutory provisions as part of a pilot program in the Hainan Free Trade Zone takes effect.
The 13th NPCSC is expected to convene for its 18th session by mid-May to discuss a draft of its annual work report and other documents to prepare for the NPC’s 2020 annual session. The Council of Chairmen is expected to meet soon after the Labor Day holiday (May 1–5) to decide on the dates and agenda of the session.
The 13th NPC will convene for its third annual session on Friday, May 22. The session’s agenda has not yet been finalized, but we expect it to include the following:
We also expect the session to retroactively approve the resignation of Feng Zhonghua [冯忠华] as an NPCSC member in June 2019. He has since been appointed a Vice Governor of Hainan. Under Chinese law, an NPCSC member must resign if he is to serve in an administrative organ.
On May 21, the NPC session will convene for a preparatory meeting to select members of the Presidium (which will preside over the session) and to finalize the session’s agenda. The Presidium will then immediately meet to decide on (among other matters) the session’s daily schedule. Shortly thereafter the session is expected to hold its first press conference.
Though the NPC’s annual session ordinarily lasts around ten days, several outlets have reported that this year’s would be shortened to only seven days. On the last day of the session, we expect the NPC to approve the Civil Code.
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UPDATE (Apr. 28, 2020): The NPCSC decided on April 29 that the NPC’s 2020 session will start on May 22. We do not know how long the session will be at this point. They ordinarily last around ten days, but several outlets reported that this year’s would be shortened to only a week. The official schedule is expected to be released the day before the session starts, on May 21.
The NPCSC also approved the revision to the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste, effective September 1, 2020, and the decision to authorize the suspension of certain statutory provisions in the Hainan Free Trade Zone, to expire on December 31, 2024.
UPDATE (Apr. 26, 2020): According to the official readout of the first plenary meeting of the NPCSC’s session this week, the Council of Chairpersons has indeed submitted a draft decision on the new dates for NPC’s 2020 session. We expect the NPCSC to adopt the draft decision and announce the new dates this Wednesday. Bloomberg reported last week that the NPC might meet from May 23 to 30.
The Council of Chairpersons decided on Friday, April 17 to convene the 17th session of the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) from April 26 to 29. Contrary to what we have expected, this upcoming session seems to be a regular bi-monthly session, where the NPCSC will review seven legislative bills. Below, we will briefly review the session’s agenda before turning to the question on everyone’s mind (well, ours at least): when will the NPC meet this year?
Continue reading “NPCSC Session Watch: COVID-19 Responses, Copyright, Armed Police Reform & Silence on 2020 NPC (Updated)”Even as China now officially reports few domestic COVID-19 cases everyday, the situation is still fluid in light of the steady influx of imported cases and over a thousand cases of asymptomatic infections. It is therefore hard, if not impossible, to predict the NPC’s legislative activities this month.
Reuters reported in mid-March that the NPC’s delayed annual session had been “tentatively” scheduled for “late April or early May.” If that is still the official plan, we expect the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) to meet by mid-April to set a date for the NPC’s meeting and to also discuss a draft of its annual work report and other documents to prepare for the NPC’s annual gathering. The Council of Chairpersons could meet as soon as this week to decide on the agenda and dates of the NPCSC’s pre-NPC session.
The NPCSC was scheduled to convene for a regular bimonthly session in late April, but that is now unlikely to take place given the reported schedule of the NPC session. The NPCSC may choose to combine this scheduled “full” session (where multiple bills are usually considered) with the shorter, pre-NPC session (where, as noted above, only preparatory work for the NPC session is usually done) for a longer pre-NPC session. If so, some of the following bills may return for further review:
This post will be updated if the NPC’s 2020 session is scheduled to start this month.
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The revised Securities Law [证券法] takes effect on March 1.
The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is expected to convene for a special session by mid-March to discuss a draft of its annual work report and other documents to prepare for the NPC’s 2020 annual session. It is also expected to set a new start date for the NPC session.
The 13th NPC is likely to convene for its third annual session in late March. We expect the session’s agenda to include the following:
We also expect the session to retroactively approve the resignation of Feng Zhonghua [冯忠华] as an NPCSC member in June 2019. He has since been appointed a Vice Governor of Hainan. Under Chinese law, an NPCSC member must resign if he is to serve in an administrative organ.
On the day before it opens, the NPC session will convene for a preparatory meeting to select members of the Presidium (which will preside over the session) and to finalize the session’s agenda. The Presidium will then immediately meet to decide on (among other matters) the session’s daily schedule. Shortly thereafter the session is expected to hold its first press conference.
We expect the NPC’s 2020 annual session to last around (maybe slightly longer than) ten days. On the last day, we expect it to approve the Civil Code.
Should the authorities decide not to convene the NPC by the end of March, however, we expect all the preparatory events mentioned above, including the NPCSC’s special session, to be accordingly postponed.
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