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)