Tag: National Intelligence Law

28th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Passes New Intelligence Law, Amends Clean Water Law, and Empowers Procuratorates to File Public Interest Lawsuits (UPDATED)

(Update: June 29, 2017): The NPCSC released full texts of the amended Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, Administrative Litigation Law, and Civil Procedure Law.

(Update: June 28, 2017): China Law Translate has translated the National Intelligence Law.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its bimonthly session this afternoon with (among other actions taken) the passage of three bills: a new National Intelligence Law, an amendment to the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, as well as amendments to two procedural laws to formally grant the procuratorates (or prosecutor’s offices) nationwide authority to initiate public interest litigation.

Continue reading “28th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Passes New Intelligence Law, Amends Clean Water Law, and Empowers Procuratorates to File Public Interest Lawsuits (UPDATED)” →

28th Session Watch Pt. 1: National Intelligence, Soil Pollution, National Anthem, and Others on Agenda—But No Sign of State Supervision (Yet) (UPDATED)

Update (June 22, 2017): According to the agenda and daily schedule of the 28th Session released today, a draft Supervision Law (监察法, formerly known as 国家监察法, or State Supervision Law) has been submitted to the NPCSC, as we predicted below. The NPCSC is scheduled to hear an explanation of the draft on Friday. We therefore will not have more information about the draft until then.

In addition, the NPC Law Committee has recommended that the NPCSC pass the National Intelligence Law and the amendment to the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law. We expect both to be approved on July 27, the last day of the Session. We also expect the ongoing session to adopt draft amendments to the Administrative Litigation Law and the Civil Procedure Law—submitted by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to empower people’s procuratorates nationwide to initiate public interest litigation. Such a process is currently being piloted in 13 provinces.

The 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene for its 28th Session on June 22 through 27, the Council of Chairmen decided this afternoon. This post is a customary summary of the Session’s agenda as announced in this press release.

Continue reading “28th Session Watch Pt. 1: National Intelligence, Soil Pollution, National Anthem, and Others on Agenda—But No Sign of State Supervision (Yet) (UPDATED)” →

NPCSC Solicits Public Opinions on Three Draft Laws: May 16, 2017 (UPDATED)

Update/Correction (May 26, 2017): The comments period for the draft National Intelligence Law now ends on June 4, 2017, NOT June 14. This post originally stated that the Law underwent a second reading at the NPCSC’s April session. This did not happen and we apologize for the mistake.

Update (May 18, 2017): China Law Translate has also translated the draft National Intelligence Law here.

Update (May 17, 2017): The China Copyright and Media blog has posted an English translation of the draft National Intelligence Law here.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is now soliciting public opinions on the following three draft legislations. The comments period currently runs through June 14, but since the NPCSC has yet to officially announce this round of solicitation of public comments on the frontpage of its website, the deadline might be extended. We will announce any change to the comments period here and on Twitter.

  1. Standardization Law (Draft Revision) (标准化法修订草案)
  2. Nuclear Safety Law (2nd Deliberation Draft) (核安全法草案二次审议稿)
  3. National Intelligence Law (Draft) (国家情报法草案)

The hyperlinks above direct to PDF versions of the draft laws, which are currently in Chinese only. We will update this post and make announcements on Twitter if and when the bills become available in other formats or languages.

We have summarized the draft revision to the Standardization Law here. Also, it now seems unlikely that the NPCSC will release the draft revision to the Securities Law for public comments. (But maybe the delay is purely for technical reasons as the bill contains more than 300 articles—who knows).

Click here to submit comments online. Please refer to our guide if you have trouble navigating the online comments system. The individual pages for the bills also contain notes (in Chinese) on their content.

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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NPC Standing Committee Schedules Major Legislation for 2017

The 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) today finally released its much-anticipated legislative and supervisory plans for 2017. Here we will focus on the legislative plan, leaving the supervisory plan for another blog post. According to the 2017 legislative plan, a total of 23 legislative projects are tentatively scheduled (as the plan is subject to change) for the remaining four NPCSC sessions this year, with dozens more listed as preparatory projects. Among them, there is certainly no lack of blockbuster legislation, whether relating to China’s judicial reform, anti-corruption drive, environmental protection, or economic and social development in general.

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25th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Reviewing a Draft National Intelligence Law—in Secrecy

As was revealed late last Monday, the tentative agenda of the current NPCSC session (which we discussed in the last post) had undergone several changes. The most notable was a new draft law named National Intelligence Law. The press release of the first meeting of the 25th Session contained the following short paragraph on this draft law:

In order to strengthen and safeguard national intelligence efforts, and to defend national security and interests, the State Council submitted a draft National Intelligence Law for deliberation. Entrusted by the State Council, CHEN Wenqing, the Minister of State Security, made an explanation.

What was unusual, however, was the complete lack of media coverage of this law in the four days since. State media did not report on the content of the law, nor on the NPCSC members’ discussion of the law yesterday. While national security legislations are “sensitive” in nature, and their media coverage is normally tightly controlled, the absence of any report is still a deviation from the usual course of action.

Continue reading “25th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Reviewing a Draft National Intelligence Law—in Secrecy” →