The pledge to grant state and private properties equal
protection in China's draft property law, which is under parliament
deliberation, accords with the Constitution, said law experts and
lawmakers on Thursday.
After an unprecedented seven times of reading since 2002, the
draft property law was submitted Thursday morning to the annual
session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top
legislature, for deliberation by nearly 3,000 lawmakers.
The draft embodied the principle of indiscriminated protection
to different property owners, a spirit enshrined in the
Constitution, by stipulating that state, collective and private
properties enjoy equal protection of the law, said Sun Xianzhong, a
researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
To give different property owners equal protection is the demand
of the market economy, which requires different players in the
market enjoy equal rights, follow same rules and shoulder same
responsibilities, said Wang Jiafu, a civil law expert with the
CASS.
"If the market players are not placed on an equal footing, the
market economy in our country will surely have no way to go," Wang
told Xinhua, noting that the socialist market economy is the
economic pattern stipulated in the Constitution.
Discrimination against private owners in property protection
will dampen people's enthusiasm in creating social wealth, and will
thus impede the growth of national economy and harm social harmony,
said Hu Kangsheng, head of the legislative affairs committee under
the NPC Standing Committee, adding the law brooks no encroachment
of state properties.
The draft property law is expected to be voted by the lawmakers
with the draft corporate income tax law on March 16, when the NPC
session ends.
(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2007)