Recording & Review Pt. 3: Are Parrots Bred in Captivity Still “Wild”?

Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels.

Common sense would answer no. But the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) disagreed—according to its interpretation of a Criminal Law provision that punishes trade in “rare and endangered wild animals.” A Shenzhen man, convicted in 2017 under this provision for buying and selling parrots he himself bred, contested this interpretation before the NPC Standing Committee’s Legislative Affairs Commission (LAC)—the body charged with reviewing judicial interpretations (among other types of documents) at the request of citizens for any inconsistency with statutes. The Commission recently informed the man that the SPC would amend the interpretation. Yet it is far from clear that he won this battle. In this third installment of Recording & Review, we will tell the story of Wang Peng [王鹏] and his parrots.

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Likely Developments Surrounding the Draft National Anthem Law (with Translation)

Last month, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) conducted an initial review of a draft National Anthem Law (Draft) (an English translation of which is attached to this post). Much of the media coverage so far has focused on provisions that ban the use of the national anthem at “inappropriate occasions” such as funerals and provide for up to 15 days of detention for “distorted or derogatory” rendition of the anthem, titled “March of the Volunteers.” With only 15 articles, the Draft contains language that is fairly easy to understand. We therefore won’t spend time scrutinizing its content here. Instead, we will take a look at likely developments surrounding the Draft, based on this report by Xinhua.

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