Lawmakers to speed up legislation on social issues 
  (Xinhua)  Updated: 2007-03-11 16:44  
 
 
 
   Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing 
 Committee of the 10th National People's Congress, delivers a report on the 
 work of the NPC in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing March 11, 2007. 
 [Xinhua]
   |   China's top legislature, the 
National People's Congress (NPC), will intensify its legislation focusing on 
social affairs this year, China's top legislator Wu Bangguo said Sunday. ( Wu Bangguo's Work Report) 
  "While continuing work to 
improve economic legislation, we must also concentrate on strengthening 
legislation related to social programs to provide a solid legal foundation for 
building a harmonious socialist society and to ensure attainment of the 
legislative goal of the 10th NPC," Wu said. 
 
The NPC Standing Committee chairman unveiled the legislative plan for 2007 
when delivering a report on the work of the 10th NPC Standing Committee at the 
legislature's annual full session. 
  The main legislative tasks this year 
include enacting the Law on Labor Contracts, Employment Promotion Law, Social 
Security Law, Law on Mediation and Arbitration of Labor Disputes, Law on 
Administrative Decrees, Law on Response to Emergencies, Antitrust Law, Law on 
State-Owned Assets, Law to Combat Illegal Drugs, Law to Curb Illegal Activities, 
Law on Urban and Rural Planning, and Circular Economy Law.  In addition, the 
legislature will revise the Law on Scientific and Technological Progress, Civil 
Procedure Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Law on Food Hygiene, Law on Energy 
Conservation, and Law on Attorneys, according Wu. 
  "We have noticed that 
a large proportion of the laws planned to be enacted or revised in 2007 target 
at regulating social affairs, " said Fu Yonglin, an NPC deputy from Sichuan 
Province. 
  For example, the draft employment promotion law, which was 
submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for reading in February, prohibits 
discrimination against job seekers despite their ethnicity, race, gender, 
religious belief, age or physical disability. And the governments above the 
county level are required to establish early warning systems to prevent, 
regulate and control possible cases of large-scale unemployment. 
  The 
draft law is urgently needed as the employment situation at present and in a 
long period to come is not optimistic, said Fu. 
  Wu Bangguo said the 
current NPC and its Standing Committee will achieve the goal of basically 
establishing a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics and improving 
the quality of legislation before the current five-year legislative tenure ends 
in next March. 
  "Over the last four years, we passed amendments to the 
Constitution, the Anti-Secession Law, and formulated or revised 70 laws, 
judicial interpretations and legal decisions concerning legal issues,...thereby 
making very good progress in legislative work," the top legislator said. 
  China is in a critical period of reform and development, in which 
China's economic system and social structure, the interests of different sectors 
of society and people's thinking and concepts are all changing profoundly, he 
said. 
  "These unprecedented social changes provide very strong vitality 
for China's development, but they inevitably create a wide variety of conflicts 
and problems as well," Wu said, adding that the legislation work should always 
adhere to correct political direction and the principle of putting people first, 
base on China's actual conditions and realities and follow the mass line. 
  14 LAWS ADOPTED IN 2006 
  The NPC Standing 
Committee deliberated 24 draft laws and draft decisions on legal issues in 2006. 
Among them 14 were adopted and five were tabled to the ongoing annual session of 
NPC for deliberating. 
  The Law on Oversight, which is strongly political 
in nature, is related to the country's political system and system of 
government. Formulation of the Law on Oversight was one of the major legislative 
acts of the NPC. Work actually began on this law at the Sixth NPC and continued 
for the following two decades. The law was adopted last year. 
  The Law on 
Oversight "fully embodies the organic unity of the leadership of the Party, the 
position of the people as masters of the country and the running of the 
government according to the rule of law; correctly balances stronger oversight 
by people's congresses with the leadership of the Party;...upholds the 
principles of democratic centralism, collective exercise of functions and 
powers, collective decision making and acting in accordance with the law and 
prescribed procedures..." said Wu. 
  The NPC Standing Committee in August 
2006 adopted the Corporate Bankruptcy Law, aiming to protect both creditors of 
bankrupt enterprises and the people who work in them. The law will come into 
effect on June 1, 2007. 
  The old bankruptcy rules, promulgated in 1986 on 
a test basis, were widely regarded as outdated as they fail to give sufficient 
protection to creditors and only touch on State-owned enterprises (SOE). 
  The new Corporate Bankruptcy Law applies to all kinds of enterprises and 
financial institutions. All the country's companies and enterprises, whether 
state-owned or private, will have to follow a unified corporate bankruptcy law 
if they founder. 
  In a bid to safeguard children's fundamental interests 
and ensure their healthy growth, the NPC Standing Committee revised Compulsory 
Education Law and Law on Protection to Minors last year. 
  Other important 
laws passed or revised last year include Anti- money Laundering Law, Banking 
Oversight and Management Law, and Organic Law of the People's Court, among 
others. 
  According to the revised Organic Law of the People's Court, the 
Supreme People's Court retrieved the right to review death penalty cases. This 
was widely regarded as an important step to ensure judicial justice. 
 
  
 
  
 
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