The Council of Chairpersons decided on Tuesday, July 27 to convene the 30th session of the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) from August 17 to 20. The session’s tentative agenda includes fifteen bills. A quick rundown follows.
Continue reading “NPCSC Session Watch: Three-Child Policy, Data Privacy, Innovation Policy, Court Reform & New National Law in Hong Kong & Macau”Tag: Macao Basic Law
NPCSC Criminalized National Anthem Disrespect, Applied National Anthem Law to SARs & Authorized Nationwide Supervision System and Armed Police Reforms
UPDATE (Nov. 22, 2017): This post has been updated with the explanations of two decisions passed by the 30th Session of the 12th NPCSC. See details below.
The 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its 30th Session last Saturday with the passage of various laws and decisions. This post is a quick rundown of the actions taken by the the NPCSC at the close of the session. Unfortunately, due to other things requiring much of our attention, this time we aren’t able to include the usual level of details as we did before. Apologies. Also, please let us know if any of the links below directs to the wrong webpage—we wrote this blog post in a hurry.
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 Macau (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.
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.
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.
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.
Continue reading “Likely Developments Surrounding the Draft National Anthem Law (with Translation)”