The veto aroused attention nationwide, as it was the first time a people's congress had rejected the work report of a judicial authority.

In recent years, a growing number of people in China have begun to feel that the Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee as well as local people's congresses at various levels are becoming increasingly "tough" when using their supervisory powers.

China's system of people's congresses was formally set up in 1954. The NPC is the country's top law-making body and is also held accountable for supervising the enforcement of the Constitution, and heeding to and deliberating on reports concerning the work of the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

The Ninth NPC and its Standing Committee, which opened the last session of its five-year term Thursday, have so far carried out inspections on enforcing 22 laws and legal decisions.

"Those inspections have played a positive role in supervising local government administrative behavior and safeguarding the fairness of justice," said Gu Jinchi, vice-chairman of the NPC Committee for Internal and Judicial Affairs.

Gu cited the NPC's inspection of law enforcement on fire controls, that discovered 300,000 hidden faults that might cause fires. Some 270,000 of those were tackled within three months following the inspection.

Other inspections, like the one over enforcing the revised Organic Law of the Village Committees, greatly improved China's democracy at the grassroots level, Gu said.

To date, approximately 600 million Chinese farmers had participated in direct elections for village committees and the overall level of village self-government had improved remarkably.

Compared to five years ago, the ninth NPC has also made significant progress in work on budget examination and supervision.

So far, the NPC had successfully encouraged 160 departments under the State Council, or the central government, to create their own budget, said Su Ning, vice-chairman of the NPC Budgetary Work Committee. The State Council, at the NPC's request, began to report on the budgets of 26 departments in the past two years since 2001, he added.

Experts say that the NPC's supervision on budgets has played a critical role in curbing corruption and ensuring that budgets are used effectively.

As well as still better supervisory measures, the ninth NPC has tried to form a complete supervisory mechanism through the law.

In August 2002, a draft law on supervision was submitted to the29th session of the NPC Standing Committee for its first hearing. That was the first of its kind in China aiming at exercising supervision by the NPC and its Standing Committee over the enforcement of the Constitution and laws and over the work of the government, courts and procuratorates.

"The law on supervision will provide a detailed legal basis to facilitate the work of national and local people's congresses," said Wang Weicheng, chairman of the NPC Law Committee.

In just a few days, China is scheduled to convene the First Plenum of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing. It is foreseeable that the new NPC, with the objective of instituting a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics by 2010, will keep improving its supervisory function to ensure the key role of law in the country's political and social life.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2003)