Annual Report on Promoting the Rule of Law in China(2016)

I. Legislation and Supervision by the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee

The Chinese National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee formulated a total of ten laws, revised 24 laws, and adopted six decisions on legal issues and made one legal interpretation in 2016. By the end of December, there were 256 current effective laws, apart from the current Constitution.

(1) Strengthen Legislation in the Major Fields

——Formulating the Charity Law. The Charity Law is an important law in the social sphere, and a basic and comprehensive law guiding the construction of the charity system. It was adopted at the Fourth Session of the Twelfth National People’s Congress in March. Its main contents are: one, it clarifies that the “charitable activities” herein refer to the public benefit activities carried out voluntarily by natural persons, legal persons, and other organizations in the forms of donating property and providing services: such as helping the poor and needy, assisting the elderly, orphans, the ill and disabled, and providing special care, alleviating losses incurred by natural disasters, accidents, public health incidents and other emergencies, promoting the development of education, science, culture and public health and sports, and protecting environments. Two, it clarifies the definition of charity organization and the procedure for its establishment, standardizes its code of conduct and internal management and defines its obligation for the transparency of information. Three, it clarifies that charity fund raising includes public fund raising activities directed at society at large and targeted fund raising activities directed at special targets, and prescribes special standards for public fund raising. Four, it clarifies the record system for charitable trusts, the scope of trustees and the obligations of trustees and supervisors. Five, it standardizes the use of financial assets of charitable organizations. It makes clear that financial assets shall be used entirely for charitable purposes in accordance with the organizational charter and donation agreements. In addition, it includes prescriptions for the measures taken to promote the development of charitable services and charitable causes, supervision over and service guidance for charitable activities and legal responsibilities for law violations in the charitable sphere.

——Formulating the Law on the Administration of Activities of Overseas Non-governmental Organizations in the Mainland of China. In order to standardize the activities of overseas non-governmental organizations in the mainland of China and safeguard their legitimate rights and interests to promote exchanges and cooperation, the NPC Standing Committee adopted the Law on the Administration of the Activities of Overseas Non-governmental Organizations in the Mainland of China in April. The law states that overseas NGOs refer to the non-profit and non-governmental foundations, social groups and think tanks, established lawfully outside the mainland of China, and can carry out public interest activities in economy, education, science, technology, culture, public health and sports, environmental protection, poverty alleviation and disaster relief that are beneficial to the development of public interest causes. The law also prescribes the way how they carry out their activities, the procedure and promotional measures. It improves the relevant system and measures for administration, strengthens supervision over financial sources and use of their funds and clarifies the corresponding legal responsibilities.

——Formulating the Cyber Security Law. The Cyber security Law is a basic law in the cyber security field. It was adopted by the NPC Standing Committee in November. The law correctly handles the relationships between space freedom and order, security and development, and autonomy and opening-up. It upholds the principles of active utilization, scientific development, law-based management and guarantee for security, clarifies the responsibilities of the competent departments, operators and users of the networks for cyber security, and established the basic management system for guaranteeing national cyber security to provide the legal guarantee for maintaining the security and order in the cyber space and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the people.

——Formulating the Law on Traditional Chinese Medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine is a treasure of the Chinese nation, and an important component part of the Chinese medical and health service. The law was adopted by the NPC Standing Committee in December. Its main contents are: One, it clarifies the important place of traditional Chinese medicine and the principle for its development, and makes it clear that traditional Chinese medicine includes medicines of the Han and all other nationalities living in China. It makes clear that the government makes large efforts to develop traditional Chinese medicine and attaches equal importance to both traditional Chinese and Western medicines. Two, it develops the service of traditional Chinese medicine, and retains and exploits the advantages of traditional Chinese medicines. Three, it establishes a management system that conforms to the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine. Four, it increases government support to traditional Chinese medicine. Five, it strengthens supervision over the medical service, and the production and sale of traditional Chinese medicines. Six, it strengthens the training of personnel working in traditional Chinese medicine service. Moreover, it also includes provisions on support to the inheritance, innovation and promotion of traditional Chinese medicine, popularization of the culture of traditional Chinese medicine and legal responsibilities.

——Formulating the Public Cultural Service Guarantee Law. The law is a basic law of overall importance in the cultural field. It was adopted by the NPC Standing Committee in December. Its main contents are: One, it clarifies the extents of the public culture service, that is, public cultural facilities, cultural products, cultural activities or other relevant services in which the government takes the lead and social resources participate, and which are supplied mainly for the purpose of satisfying the basic cultural demand of citizens. Two, it clarifies the principles that should be observed for public cultural services, that is, adhering to the orientation for the advancement of the advanced socialist culture, adhering to the people as the center, and adhering to the guidance of the socialist core values; and, giving support to the creation and production of fine public cultural products to enrich the content of public cultural services in accordance with the policy of "letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend". Three, it clarifies the standards for the basic public cultural services and the systems for free public cultural service facilities or preferential admission and public notices on public cultural services. Four, it defines the responsibilities of the government for the work of public cultural services. Five, it prescribes the procedures for the demolition and reconstruction of public cultural facilities. Six,it strengthens the digitalization of the public cultural services and the construction of the webs. Seven, it improve the effectiveness of public cultural services. Moreover, it also includes the financial guarantee, supervision and management, personnel training, and the legal responsibilities for the violations of the law.

——Formulating the Environmental Protection Tax Law. It was adopted by the NPC Standing Committee in December. It was the first tax law adopted by the current NPC Standing Committee. It was based on the current pollution discharge fee system and connected with the newly revised Law on Environmental Protection. In accordance with the principle of “level shift from pollution discharge fee to the tax burden”, it clarifies the systems for tax payers, targets for taxation, basis for taxation, tax items, tax amount, tax collection and management.

——Revising the Law on the Protection of Wildlife. The NPC Standing Committee revised the Law on the Protection of Wildlife in July. The revision upholds the principles of giving priority to the protection of wildlife, rational utilization of wildlife resources and strict supervision and control, further strengthens the protection of wildlife and its habitat, improves the systems and measures for the protection of wildlife, supervision and control. It explicitly prohibits the production and sale of foods made of wildlife under special government protection and their products, and explicitly prohibits the illegal purchase of wildlife under special government protection and their products for food. It increases guard against and punishment to the illegal capture and hunting of wildlife, and illegal trading of wildlife.

——Revising the Law on Promoting Privately-Run Schools. In order to advance the reform of classified management and promote the healthy development of privately-run schools, the NPC Standing Committee adopted the decision on revising the Law on Promoting Privately-run Schools in November. It clarifies the classified management of privately-run schools, prohibits the establishment of profitable privately-run schools, improves the mechanism for the management of privately-run schools by legal persons, increases the government measures to support privately-run schools, and includes provisions on the issue of transition from current privately-run schools.

In 2016, the NPC Standing Committee also adopted the Law on the Exploration and Development of Deep Seabed Area Resources, the Asset Evaluation Law, the National Defence Transportation Law, and the Law on Promoting the Film Industry, revised the Law on the Protection of Maritime Environment, and reviewed the Red Cross Society Law, the Law on Promoting Medium-sized and Small Enterprises, the revised draft of the Surveying and Mapping Law, the drafts of the amendments to the Nuclear Security Law, the State Intelligence Law, the Electronic Commerce Law and the Law on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution. The NPC Standing Committee also reviewed the draft of the General Principles of the Civil Law.

(2) Support and Guarantee the Reforms in the Relevant Fields

——Making decisions on authorization according to law to provide the basis for the experimental work of reforms. The deepening of the reform of the national supervision system has a great deal to do with the reform of the major political system that concerns the overall situation. In the spirit of the instruction that “all major reforms should be based on law”, the NPC Standing Committee made the decision on making experiments on the reform of the national supervision system in the municipality of Beijing and the provinces of Shanxi and Zhejiang. It made clear that supervision committees would be set up in the experimental regions to exercise the power of supervision. The supervision committees, elected at the people’s congresses at the same level, are responsible to the people’s congresses and their standing committees and the supervision committees at the upper level and accept their oversight. The supervision committees exercise supervision over all public officials in their respective regions who use public power according to law. The regions making experiments temporarily adjusted or suspended the application of the relevant provisions of the Administrative Supervision Law, Criminal Procedure Law and local organic laws.

The NPC Standing Committee also adopted decisions on authorizing the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to make experiments on adopting the system of giving leniency to whoever admit guilt and submit to punishment, authorizing the State Council to make temporary adjustment to the application of relevant provisions of the Civil Servant Law of the People's Republic of China in some regions and some central organs in Beijing, and authorizing the State Council to make temporary adjustment to the application of relevant provisions of the Social Insurance Law of the People’s Republic of China in the administrative areas of Handan in Hebei Province, and eleven other cities, and make temporary adjustments to the application of provisions of the relevant laws during the period of the reform of the officer system.

——Making an overall plan for revising a number of laws to continue the reforms in the relevant fields. The NPC Standing Committee adopted a decision on revising six laws including the Energy Conservation Law in July to further optimize the process of examining and approving investments and improve the efficiency of administrative examination and approval. It adopted another decision in November on revising the Foreign Trade Law and eleven other laws and making changes to the similar or relevant clauses and paragraphs in the laws related to administrative examination and approval and the acceptance of professional qualifications. The two overall revisions provided the legal support and guarantee for deepening the reforms to streamline administration, delegate more powers, improve regulation, provide better services, and promote the transformation of government functions. The NPC Standing Committee made two decisions in August 2013 and December 2014 on authorizing the State Council to make temporary adjustments to the administrative examination and approval prescribed in the relevant laws in the pilot free trade zones in Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian and made a explicit provision that if the relevant reform measures “proved to be workable in the three years of experiments, the relevant laws should be revised and perfected.” The State Council submitted a proposal after summing up the experience in the experiments, and the NPC Standing Committee made an overall revision in September, 2016, of the Law on Foreign Capital Enterprises, the Law on Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures, the Law on Chinese-Foreign Contractual Joint Ventures and the Law on the Protection of Investments of Taiwan Compatriots, and upgraded the reform measures taken for the experiments in the pilot free trade zones into laws, and at the same time terminated the legal validity of the two authorization decisions.

(3) Make the Interpretation on Article 104 of the Hong Kong Basic Law

In the light of the advocacy of “Hong Kong independence” by individual members of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region when taking oaths and their words and acts insulting the country and nation and the disputes arising from them inside the Legislative Council and the society of Hong Kong as a whole, the NPC Standing Committee exercised the power conferred on it by the Constitution and the Basic Law of Hong Kong, adopted an interpretation of Article 104 of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, making it clear that the provision in the article “swear to uphold the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and swear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China” is both the statutory content that must be included in the oath prescribed in the article and the statutory requirement and qualification for entering in the contest for or taking an official post listed in the article; it makes clear the statutory procedure and content that must be abided by in taking the oath for an official post; and it makes clear the legal consequence of losing the qualification for taking the official post after violating the provision on oath taking and the legal responsibility for taking a false oath or contravening the oath.

(4) Promoting Scientific Legislation and Democratic Legislation

The NPC Standing Committee attached importance to further improving the mechanism and methods for the legislative work and strengthened organization and coordination to improve the precision and accuracy of the legislative work. One, it issued the Opinions on Establishing and Improving the System of the Working Organs of the Special Committees and the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for the Organization of Preparing the Drafts of Major Laws to strengthen its organization and coordination for the legislative work and give full play to the leading role of the National People’s Congress in the legislative work. Two, it improved the system of soliciting opinions from NPC deputies for preparing law drafts by inviting deputies to participate in the work of making legislative investigations, argumentations, reviews and assessments, and conscientiously heard and adopted opinions and suggestions from NPC deputies to give still better play to the role of the deputies in legislation. Three, it formulated the Norms for the Collection of and Argumentation for Legislation Projects and improved the system for the collection of legislation projects and the work of argumentation to advance the standardization and systematization of the legislative work. Four, it set up a legislative expert committee to give play to the role of legislative experts and advisors. Five, it actively advanced the establishment of contact points for basic level legislation and solicited opinions from four contact points for the drafts of seven laws and the legislative work plan for 2017 so that the legislative work was more closely related with the feelings and conditions of the people at the grassroots. Six, it held the Twenty-second National Symposium on Local Legislation to strengthen its guidance over the local legislative work and further promote the local legislative power of the cities with districts.

(5) The Supervision Work of the NPC Standing Committee

The NPC Standing Committee exercised its power of supervision in 2016, strengthened its supervision and innovated the method of supervision to urge the government, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to exercise administration by law and administer justice fairly to guarantee that the legitimate rights and interests of the people were earnestly protected and the major policies arrangements made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party were implemented in an all-round way.

——Inspecting the implementation of laws. The NPC Standing Committee inspected the implementation of six laws, including the Food Safety Law, the Work Safety Law, the Road Traffic Safety Law, the Environmental Protection Law, the Water Law and the Law on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements.

The NPC Standing Committee inspected the implementation of the Food Safety Law, by laying emphasis on risk monitoring, risk assessment and classified risk management, the implementation of the relevant laws and systems related to food production and sale to prevent risks and the implementation of the supervisory laws and systems in the whole process, the implementation of the legal responsibility systems and the implementation of the relevant laws and systems for supervision over special foods and the social governance of food safety. As to the implementation of the Work Safety Law, the NPC Standing Committee focused its inspection on the establishment of the work safety system, the publicity to and implementation of the work safety law, the corresponding measures taken by the relevant departments as required by legal supervision, the main problems in work safety and the opinions and suggestions for work safety. As to the implementation of the Road Traffic Safety Law, it focused on law enforcement and supervision over law enforcement, the outstanding problems in road traffic safety and the measures and suggestions for the improvement of the ability to improve road traffic safety. The inspection of the implementation of the Environmental Protection Law focused on the efforts made by local governments and departments to promote progress in the implementation of the law and the systems, and the measures to strengthen supervision over environments, promote the prevention and control of environmental pollution and improve the environmental quality and the main problems in the environments. As to the implementation of the Water Law, the stress was laid on the inspection of the construction of the facilities and investment for farm irrigation and water conservancy, introduction of water-saving irrigation methods and water-saving technologies, protection of water sources and facilities for farm irrigation, participation of collective economic organizations and their members in the construction of farm water conservancy facilities, the reform of the system of property rights to small farm irrigation facilities, and the improvement of the water conservancy service system. When inspecting the implementation of the Law on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological achievements, the NPC Standing Committee focused its attention on the principal role of enterprises strengthened by local governments and departments in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and the measures they took to encourage schools of higher learning and research institutions to transform scientific and research achievements and improve the services provided for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, the use and disposal of scientific and technological achievements and management of the income from them, and the implementation of the law related to awards and remunerations for scientific and research achievements made on jobs, and the main problems pending solutions.

In the course of inspecting the implementation of the six laws, members of the NPC Standing Committee put forward opinions and suggestions for the revision of the relevant laws and the improvement of the work. The State Council and the related departments under the State Council paid special attention to their opinions and suggestions, and adopted corresponding measures to improve their work.

Moreover, in order to strengthen follow-up oversight over the work of the Government and the Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate in handling the inspection reports and the opinions and suggestions from NPC Standing Committee members on the reports and the improvements made by the government, court and procuratorate thereafter, and to urge them to solve the outstanding contradictions and problems, the NPC Standing Committee asked them to submit written or oral reports on their follow-up work. Apart from hearing the feedback report from the State Council on handling the inspection report on the implementation of the Food Safety Law and the opinions from NPC Standing Committee members, it also reviewed the feedback reports from the State Council on handling the inspection reports on the implementation of the Vocational Education Law and the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly in 2016.

——Hearing and reviewing special work reports. The NPC Standing Committee heard and reviewed 20 work reports from the State Council, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on the work in economy, finance, environments and judicature in 2016.

One, it heard a report on the implementation of the 2016 National Economic and Social Development Plan, a report on the management of the state-owned assets and the system reform and a report on the work of innovations in agricultural and forestry science and technology from the State Council and firmly advanced the supply-side structural reform to promote the steady and healthy economic and social development and guarantee a good beginning of the Thirteenth Five-Year National Economic and Social Plan.

Two, it heard from the State Council the report on the implementation of the 2016 budget, the work report on the auditing of the implementation of the 2015 central budget and other revenues and expenditures, the report on the 2015 central final accounts, the report on the correction of the problems found in the auditing of the implementation of the 2015 central budget and other revenues and expenditures and the report on deepening the reform of the transfer pay system and reviewed them. It examined and approved the 2015 central final accounts, examined and approved the 2016 central budget adjustment plan submitted by the State Council and promoted the reform of the fiscal and tax system and the related legislative work to ensure that the state funds are well managed and used.

Three, it heard the report from the State Council on the environmental situation and the fulfillment of the targets for environmental protection in 2015 and the report on the construction and management of the natural preservation zones to push forward the comprehensive implementation of the strictest legal system for environmental protection and solve the outstanding environmental problems to which the people had expressed strong negative sentiments and make efforts to promote the green development mode and lifestyle. It was for the first time that the NPC Standing Committee heard and reviewed the annual report on the environmental situation and the fulfillment of the targets for environmental protection in accordance with the provision in Article 27 of the newly revised Environmental Protection Law. It will become a system for the NPC Standing Committee to hear such reports, and urge local governments at all levels to make reports on the annual environmental conditions to the people’s congresses and their standing committees at the same level and the fulfillment of the targets for environmental protection, and accept supervision from people’s congresses and the people.

Four, it heard the report from the Supreme People’s Court on deepening judicial transparency and promoting judicial fairness and the mid-term report on the experiments on the reform of the people’s assessor system, the report from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on strengthening supervision over investigations to safeguard judicial fairness and the mid-term report on the experiments on bringing public interest actions. It strengthened supervision, deepened the reform of the judicial system, supported and pushed forward the orderly proceeding of the experimental work of the reform in the judicial sphere to further strengthen judicial transparency, standardize judicial behaviors, improve the supervision mechanism and improve judicial credibility.

Moreover, the NPC Standing Committee also heard and reviewed the report on the implementation of the decision on the Sixth Five-Year Plan for Wide Publicity to the Judicial System, the report on the work of the reform and development of higher education and the work report on the implementation of the Law on Administration of Entry and Exit.

——Strengthen the implementation of and supervision of the Constitution. One, it comprehensively implemented the system of taking the oath of allegiance to the Constitution. The NPC Standing Committee held six ceremonies of taking the oath of allegiance to the Constitution and organized 23 newly appointed state functionaries to take the oath in 2016. Two, it held a symposium to mark the national Constitution Day. December 4, 2016 was the third national Constitution Day, and General Secretary Xi Jinping made an important instruction on the Exhibition Hall for the 1954 Constitution Historical Data. He stressed that to conduct publicity and education on the Constitution was an important task for the comprehensive governance of the country according to law, it was essential to uphold the organic unity of the leadership of the Party, the people becoming the masters of the country and law-based governance of the country, popularize the knowledge of the Constitution, enhance the sense of the Constitution and carry forward the spirit of the Constitution to promote the implementation of the Constitution. Three, strengthen publicity and education on the Constitution. When it heard the report from the State Council on the implementation of the Sixth Five-Year Plan for the Popularization of the Knowledge of the Law and the relevant proposals, the NPC Standing Committee made the resolution on conducting publicity and education on the Seventh Five-Year Plan for the Popularization of the Knowledge of the Law, requiring organizers to give first place to publicity to the Constitution, conduct publicity and education on the Constitution in the whole society, develop the spirit of the Constitution and establish the authority of the Constitution.

——Promote the work of examining the normative documents filed to the central organs. One, the working organ of the NPC Standing Committee examined 37 administrative regulations and judicial interpretations submitted by the State Council, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate for record one by one. It put forward explicit opinions and suggestions to all these documents whether they had the problem of inconsistency with laws. On the important matters of the revision of the Electoral Law, the implementation of the Budget Law and the reform of the administrative examination and approval system, it chose the relevant local statutes for examination and required the relevant local governments to handle the matters in time when finding inconsistencies with the revised laws. Two, it conscientiously handled suggestions for examination submitted by citizens and organizations. In 2016, the working organ of the NPC Standing Committee handled 92 suggestions, and found one document with inconsistency with the relevant law, and helped the formulating organ to include the revision of the document in the 2017 legislative plan. The feedback work for the examination of suggestions gradually became standard and normal. It gave written feedbacks to 28 citizens who submitted suggestions in 2016. It notified the suggestion makers with conclusions after the NPC Standing Committee finished the examination of the statutes and judicial interpretations within its competency, but transferred the suggestions to other normative documents not within its competency to the relative state organs for handling them. Three, it improved the work mechanism for the examination of filed documents. The working organ of the NPC Standing Committee formulated the Work Rules of the Commission of Legislative Affairs of the NPC Standing Committee for the Examination of Statutes and Judicial Interpretations Filed for Record (for trial implementation), and standardized the major links of making communications and consultations with document makers, submitting written opinions and suggestions for correction to promote the systematization and standardization of the work of examining filed documents. The NPC Standing Committee started the construction of the platform for the retrieval of information on filed statutes and put it into operation to make preparations for the electronic filing of statutes.