China's top legislature records 889 normative documents for review in 2017

BEIJING -- China's top legislature received and put on records 889 normative documents for review this year, according to a government report.

Local laws and regulations made up the majority of the documents, with 358 at the provincial level and 444 municipal, as of early December.

Shen Chunyao, chairman of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, delivered the report Sunday at the bi-monthly session of the NPC Standing Committee, which runs until Wednesday.

Since March 2013, the legislative affairs commission has carried out a number of reviews of "astounding regulations" in certain regions that breached the law and damaged its sanctity, as well as of certain regulations on nature reserves that contradicted higher laws.

So far, a total of 35 such local laws and regulations have been amended or abolished, with another 680 on the agenda, the report said.

The commission also carried out reviews based on the requests from citizens and organizations, with a total of 1,527 received since March 2013.

This year saw the most of the requests with 1,084, while 1,116 of the requests are for the reviews of judicial interpretations, according to the report.

Recording and reviewing normative documents including administrative and local laws and regulations, as well as judicial interpretations is a significant duty of the NPC Standing Committee, which has the power to nullify documents that contradict with the Constitution and laws, according to the Constitution.