Full Text: Work report of NPC Standing Committee (8)

Fellow Deputies,

The Standing Committee's achievements last year were made under the correct leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as General Secretary and are the result of the hard work of NPC deputies, members of the NPC Standing Committee and special committees, and the staff of the offices of the NPC; the joint efforts of the State Council, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate; and the full support of the local people's congresses at all levels and their standing committees as well as the people of all of China's ethnic groups. On behalf of the NPC Standing Committee, I would like to express heartfelt appreciation to you all.

We are keenly aware that the work of the Standing Committee still falls well short of the expectations of the people and the demands of deputies. For example, the Standing Committee still has to strengthen its organization and coordination of legislative work; improve its mechanisms for follow-up oversight; address the problems of inadequate engagement with lower-level organizations and the people and inadequate response to people's concerns that exist in some investigations and studies on legislation and oversight; and do more meticulous and effective work in order to strengthen its ties with deputies. We will willingly accept the oversight of the people; listen to the views of deputies with an open mind; and get the NPC and its Standing Committee to better play their roles as the highest organs of state power, working bodies that carry out their functions and duties in accordance with the law, and representative bodies in close contact with the people.

Major Tasks for This Year

The year 2014 is the first year for fully implementing the guiding principles of the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth CPC Central Committee and its decision to comprehensively deepen reform and is crucial for completing all the tasks of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. The general requirements for the work the NPC Standing Committee this year are as follows: Hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics; take Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development as the guide; comprehensively implement the guiding principles of the Eighteenth National Party Congress and the second and third plenary sessions of the Eighteenth CPC Central Committee; study and implement the guidelines of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speeches; firmly uphold the unity of the leadership of the Party, the position of the people as masters of the country, and the rule of law; focus on the overall work of the Party and country as we perform our official functions and carry out our work in accordance with the law; strengthen legislation in key areas; strengthen oversight of the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate; safeguard the authority of the Constitution and laws; promote social fairness and justice; get the system of people's congresses to advance with the times; and make a greater contribution to comprehensively deepening reform, finishing building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

1. We will strengthen legislation in key areas and legislate scientifically and democratically.

The power to enact laws for the country is the most important official function conferred on the NPC and its Standing Committee by the Constitution. The Eighteenth National Party Congress set forth the requirement of improving the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics. The Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee made overall arrangements for comprehensively deepening reform, many of which are about the legislative work of the NPC. To attain the overall goals of deepening reform in all respects, namely, improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and modernizing China's governance system and its governance capacity, the NPC Standing Committee will better combine legislative decisions with reform decisions, promptly enact and revise laws related to comprehensively deepening reform, use the legal system to promote and carry out reform measures, and get legislation to fully play its role in guiding, spurring and guaranteeing reform.

We will implement the Central Committee's decision to comprehensively deepen reform, revise the Budget Law, improve the budget management system, and put in place a comprehensive, standardized, open and transparent budgeting system. We will revise the Administrative Procedures Law and the Law on Administrative Review to improve the mechanisms for hearing administrative litigation and reconsideration cases, correct illegal or improper administrative actions, and make the mechanism for protecting people's rights and interests more accessible and better regulated. We will revise the Environmental Protection Law and the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law to improve the environmental protection and management system so that emissions of all pollutants can be supervised strictly, and enforce the strictest systems for protecting the environment by controlling pollution at the source, holding polluters accountable for the damage they cause and having them compensate for it. Other items on the Standing Committee's legislative agenda for this year are as follows: Revise the Legislation Law, the Food Safety Law, the Production Safety Law, the Securities Law, the Advertising Law, the Military Equipment Protection Law, and the Education Law; and enact the Asset Evaluation Law, the Waterway Law, the State Medals and Honorary Titles Law, the Futures Law, the Grain Law, and the Chinese Medicines Law.

For reform measures set forth by the CPC Central Committee that require enacting or revising laws or legal authorization, we will intensify research, promptly get started, arrange deliberation at appropriate times, and ensure that major reforms have a legal basis and are carried out in an orderly way. On the basis of the principle of proceeding actively and prudently, we will strengthen the organization and coordination of legislative work and urge those drafting legislation to do so quickly. For laws connected to issues that are complex and where there are sharp differences of opinion, we need to coordinate the interests of all parties in an overall manner, appropriately resolve key problems, and effectively prevent departmental interests from being written into law and local protectionism. We will better interpret laws to ensure they are enforced properly and effectively.

The quality of legislative work directly affects how well the rule of law is implemented. The more we emphasize the rule of law, the more important it is to raise the quality of legislation. We need to make legislating scientifically and democratically the basis for improving the quality of legislation, and integrate legislating scientifically and democratically into the praxis of the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics and into the entire course and all aspects of legislative work.

The essence of legislating scientifically is respecting and embodying objective law in enacting legislation. In the concrete praxis of legislation, we need to continue improving legislative procedures and standardize legislative action so as to improve the legislative system with Chinese characteristics. We need to fully debate legislative items, scientifically determine legislative items, and improve the system for evaluating laws before and after they are promulgated. We need to enact, revise, annul and interpret laws to make legislative work better coordinated, less delayed and more systematic. We need to strengthen investigation on legislative matters, correctly identify important and challenging issues in legislation, search for scientific solutions to them, and make laws more enforceable and practicable.

The essence of legislating democratically is relying on the people and legislating for their benefit. In the concrete praxis of legislation, we need to improve the legislative work mechanism of following the guidance of legislative bodies, having relevant government departments participate in making laws, and involving NPC deputies, experts, representatives from enterprises and public institutions as well as social groups, people's organizations, and members of the general public in legislative work. We will improve the mechanism for promulgating draft laws to solicit comments and suggestions on them and the mechanism for giving feedback to those who made suggestions. We will pay attention to the opinions people express online and expand the avenues by which people can participate in legislation in an orderly way. We will expand the role of NPC deputies in the legislative process and intimately integrate the deliberation of deputies' bills and the handling of their proposals with the work of enacting and revising laws, and study and accept deputies' suggestions. We will improve the mechanism for coordinating and consulting on the drafting and deliberation of laws, listen to and deal with suggestions from all sources including opposing views, fully respect and make proper use of all kinds of constructive criticisms and suggestions, and achieve popular consensus to the greatest possible extent.