China's legislative body, the National People's Congress (NPC),
published on Sunday the full text of its draft law on property
rights on its website (www.npc.gov.cn) to solicit public opinion on
the draft.
The draft contains five chapters and 268 items. It had been
deliberated on three times by lawmakers as of the end of
June.
Citizens can offer their feedback on the draft before
August 20.
The standing committees of people's congresses of the
different provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities are in
charge of pooling the opinions of NPC deputies, related departments
and law studies units. Data is then to be sent to the Commission of
Legislative Affairs of the Standing Committee of the 10th NPC.
Citizens can mail their opinions either to the standing
committees of people's congresses in their provinces, autonomous
regions and municipalities or directly to the Commission of
Legislative Affairs of the NPC Standing Committee, postcode 100805.
They can also post their opinions on the NPC website.
The Commission of Legislative Affairs will revise the draft
accordingly and submit a revised draft law to the NPC Standing
Committee for a fourth deliberation.
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 10th NPC will be held next
March and a fifth deliberation will be voted on at the session.
Draft laws in China ordinarily go through a process involving
three deliberations. However, it was decided that this draft on
property rights be put through five deliberations because it aims
to define and safeguard property rights that are the fundamental
rights of every citizen.
One of the provisions, for example, states that property owners
shall be given reasonable compensation when their properties are
taken over for public use. Those who refuse to make the
compensation will bear legal liability.
The draft also proposes to prohibit urban residents from buying
farmland. In the last 50 years, affluent urbanites have been
purchasing prime country real estate to build holiday homes and
retreats.
Wang Shengming, director of the Commission of Legislative
Affairs, said that the new law would make citizens feel more
reassured of their rights to property.
The draft law also aims to protect state property by defining
that administrative staff in state-owned enterprises shall bear
civil, administrative or even criminal liabilities if they transfer
the ownership of public property through stock or company sales at
low prices.
This provision is aimed at addressing some of the problems that
have resulted from management buyouts (MBO) of state-owned
enterprises. Managers were found to have compromised the interests
of employees, investors and financial institutions for personal
gain.
According to official statistics, China loses 40 billion yuan
(US$4.8 billion) of state-owned assets annually through internal
mismanagement and fraud.
(Xinhua News Agency July 11, 2005)