Chinese lawmakers Tuesday discussed a proposal by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on making a number of major amendments to the Constitution.

The legislators approved the contents of the ruling party's proposal, and said that they would table a bill on the amendments to the Constitution at the Second Session of the Tenth National People's Congress for approval in March next year.

Over the past two decades, the existing Constitution has been kept stable, while certain improvements were made, step by step, in line with practice, according to the legislators.

The Constitution has played a significant role in China's reform, opening-up and socialist modernization, promoting socialist political democracy, pushing forward the process of governing by law and building a socialist country ruled by law, and safeguarding the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people, they noted.

The top lawmakers pointed out that, since the Fifteenth CPC Congress, held in 1997, China has achieved historic progress, and accumulated much valuable experience in its reform, opening up andsocialist modernization, through joint efforts by the whole Party and the whole Chinese people. Under the new circumstances, it is urgent to regularize these new experiences by writing them into the Constitution, they said.

The Sixteenth CPC Congress, held in 2002, enshrined the important thought of the "Three Represents", along with Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory, as a long-term guiding principle for the Party. It reflects the common aspiration of the whole Party and the whole Chinese people to makethe "Three Represents" another guiding principle in the country's political and social life, by adding it to the Constitution, the legislators said.

They agreed that it is of great realistic significance and profound historic significance to provide a common ideological basis for the whole Party and the whole Chinese people to unite and strive in the new century and the new period.

The proposal was formed in a democratic way, under the direct leadership of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee's Political Bureau. It was the brainchild of the whole Party and the whole Chinese people, by integrating the will of the Party andthe will of the people, they stressed.

The top legislators said that they believed that amending the Constitution in accordance with the Party's proposal is helpful for strengthening and improving the leadership of the Party, bringing the advantages of socialism into full play, arousing the enthusiasm of the masses, safeguarding the country's unification, national unity and social stability, and promoting the country's economic development and overall social progress.

At the meeting, the legislators also discussed the drafts of the Law on the Supervision of the Banking Industry, the amendmentsto the Law on the People's Bank of China, and the amendments to the Law on the Commercial Bank. The three drafts have been discussed many times, and should be approved at the session, they held.

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