It is the primary task of the National People's Congress (NPC)
and its Standing Committee, China's top legislature, to strengthen
and improve its supervision over the government and judicial organs
in 2004, Wu Bangguo, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said
in Beijing Wednesday.
"We should explore still better ways of supervision and further
improve our supervisory mechanism in order to promote a law-based
administration and judicial justice," said Wu in a report on his
Committee's work over the past year to the ongoing annual full
session of the lawmakers.
The top legislator noted that the NPC Standing Committee this
year would carry out the enforcement inspections of laws pertaining
to animal epidemic prevention, land management, compulsory
education, trade unions and statistics.
"Inspections on law enforcement constitute a basic form of
supervision of the NPC Standing Committee," he acknowledged, adding
that in 2003 the Committee carried out nationwide inspections on
the enforcement of five laws.
Meanwhile, the NPC Standing Committee could also enhance its
supervision over the government and judicial organs through other
means like hearing and examining their budgets, work reports and
handling letters of complaints from the general public.
"In the past year we heard and deliberated 11 special-topic work
reports from the State Council and other government and judicial
departments, including reports on the prevention and control of
SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and bird flu (highly
pathogenic avian influenza)," said Wu.
In 2003, the NPC Standing Committee also received more than
31,000 visitors reporting various problems and handled over 57,000
letters of complaints from the public, he added.
"This year we plan to hear and examine reports of the State
Council on the establishment of a quick-response mechanism for
public health emergencies, the increase of farmers' income and
development of agriculture, the maintenance of market economic
orders, law education among the public, as well as the saving and
protection of water resources," he noted.
Wu also told the legislators that over the past year, all bills,
proposals and criticisms they tabled and put forward during last
year's NPC full session had been handled properly by the NPC
Standing Committee and relevant governments and judicial
departments.
"On the basis of your bills and proposals, five laws have been
enacted while three other draft laws have been submitted to the NPC
Standing Committee for deliberation," Wu said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2004)
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