The ongoing Fifth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress
(NPC) held its third plenary meeting Saturday, and Ninth NPC
Standing Committee Chairman Li Peng delivered a report on the work
of the Standing Committee.
Communist Party of China and state leaders Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji,
Li Ruihuan, Hu Jintao, Wei Jianxing and Li Lanqing were present at
the plenum presided over by Cheng Siwei, executive chairman of the
Fifth Session and executive chairman of the presidium of the Fifth
Session.
A
total of 2,774 NPC deputies attended the plenary meeting.
In
his report, Li said that the Standing Committee has strengthened
and improved its legislative and supervisory roles in the past
year, and examined 30 bills and enacted 16 laws and one explanation
and three resolutions on relevant laws, enabling China to achieve a
step forward to building a socialist legal system with its own
characteristics.
Over the past year, the Standing Committee has stipulated the Trust
Law and revised laws on trademarks and copy rights to meet the
requirements of China's accession to the World Trade Organization.
It also promulgated the Law on Population and Family Planning and
amended laws on trade unions and marriage, respectively.
While making continued efforts to improve and strengthen its
supervisory work, the Standing Committee will strengthen the
supervision and increase the efficiency of the supervision, in
order to make new progress in both legislative and supervisory
work, he said.
Li
said the NPC Standing Committee has much legislative work to this
year, the last year of its term. The Standing Committee will adhere
to and improve the people's congress system, making it a
fundamental task to develop socialist democracy and improve the
socialist legal system, by improving the work style and working
honestly and hard to fulfill all the tasks of this Standing
Committee.
Over the past four years, the Ninth NPC adopted an amendment to the
Constitution, 58 laws, four interpretations for laws and 20
resolutions on legal issues, the top legislator said.
This year, the Standing Committee will enact and revise a number of
laws to meet the needs of reform, development and stability, so as
to achieve the goal of building the socialist legal system with
Chinese characteristics.
The Standing Committee will lose no time to work out the Civil Law
and laws on supervision, property rights, administrative licensing
and enforcement, and government procurement, advancement of
medium-sized and small enterprises, and rural land contracting. It
will also revise the Agricultural Law, Li said.
Now that China has become a member of the World Trade Organization,
the NPC Standing Committee will lose no time to enact and revise
relevant laws concerning export commodity inspection, insurance,
anti-monopoly, foreign trade, and animal and plant quarantine,
according to the top lawmaker.
In
exercising its supervisory functions, Li stressed the NPC should
supervise and assist the work of the administrative, judicial and
procuratorial departments according to law and the principle of
collective supervision. The Standing Committee will set up special
investigation committees to look into cases involving extremely
serious violation of law.
Li
said the election of the people's congress at the county level and
above is scheduled to start from the latter half of this year, and
that of deputies to the Tenth NPC will be completed by the end of
January next year.
He
drew the attention to the importance of the election in building up
state power, and encouraged the NPC standing committee to do the
job well within their powers and functions invested by the
Constitution and other laws.
At
the plenum, a draft decision on the number of deputies electable to
the Tenth NPC and matters related to the election has been
submitted to the ongoing Fifth Session of the Ninth NPC for
deliberation. According to the draft decision, the total number of
deputies to the 10th NPC should not exceed 3,000 and their election
is required to be completed before the end of January 2003.
The number of deputies electable by the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region (SAR) to the Tenth National People's Congress
is 36 and that by Macao Special Administrative Region is 12,
according to He Chunlin, secretary-general of the Ninth NPC
Standing Committee, who made an explanation on the drafts on the
provisions on elections in the two SARs.
The size of the Legislative Council of the HKSAR has been more than
doubled to about 1,000 members. Chief executives are members of
legislative councils of the two SARs, respectively.
(Xinhua News
Agecny March 9, 2002)