The "Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft Amendment)" was submitted to the First Session of the 14th National People's Congress for deliberation on the 5th.

This is the first important revision of the law after the third session of the 12th National People's Congress adopted the decision to amend the Legislative Law in eight years.

  The Legislative Law is the basic law that regulates the national legislative system and legislative activities and maintains the unity of the socialist rule of law.

As a "law that governs the law", what are the important points of this round of amendments to the Legislative Law?

What impact will it have on national governance?

Aspect 1: Improve the guiding ideology and principles, and form a scientific, complete, unified and authoritative legal norm system

  What should I do if the legislation is not targeted and operable?

How to solve the inconsistency, inconsistency and incompatibility between legal provisions?

The Draft Amendment clarifies that the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee adhere to scientific, democratic, and law-based legislation, and enhance the systematicness, integrity, and synergy of legislation through various forms such as enactment, amendment, abolition, interpretation, and compilation of laws. ,Timeliness.

  "The weak link in the current legislative work is mainly reflected in the fact that the quality of legislation needs to be further improved." Li Zan, a deputy to the National People's Congress and vice chairman of the Chengdu CPPCC in Sichuan, believes that the revised draft focuses on improving the quality of legislation, and has a significant impact on the systematicness, integrity, and integrity of legislation. Coordination and timeliness put forward higher requirements.

  In this regard, the draft amendment stipulates many specific measures.

For example, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has strengthened overall arrangements for legislative work through legislative plans, annual legislative plans, and special legislative plans.

When formulating legislative planning and legislative plans, it is necessary to carefully study representative bills and suggestions, extensively solicit opinions, and scientifically demonstrate and evaluate them.

Legislative planning and legislative plans are adopted by the chairman meeting and announced to the public.

The working body of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress formulates legislative technical specifications.

  Gao Zicheng, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a partner of Beijing Dada Law Firm, said that to promote scientific, democratic, and law-based legislation, we must give consideration to both problem-oriented and goal-oriented.

It is recommended to further improve the legislative hearing system, increase the number of opinions from stakeholders and representatives of administrative counterparts, and promote and improve the spokesperson mechanism of the Legal Affairs Commission.

Aspect 2: Strengthen the implementation and supervision of constitutional laws and clarify the requirements for constitutional review

  Another highlight of the revised draft is to strengthen the implementation and supervision of the Constitution and laws from the perspective of system design, clarify the explanation of the draft law, unified review and other links, and the constitutionality review requirements in the record review work, and improve the record review system.

  Liang Yinghua, a representative of the National People's Congress and deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Cangzhou Municipal People's Congress in Hebei, said that strengthening the implementation and supervision of the Constitution and laws is an important way to implement the principle of law-based legislation. It maintains the unity of the socialist legal system and the authority of the constitution with the highest effectiveness. Improve the quality of legislation and ensure good laws and good governance.

  "The draft amendment changes the 'legal committee' in the current law to the 'constitution and legal committee', adds provisions for active review and special review, establishes and improves the linkage mechanism for filing and review, and further improves the socialist constitutional supervision system with Chinese characteristics. It will effectively maintain the unity of the legal system," said Tang Weijian, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a professor at the Law School of Renmin University of China.

Aspect 3: Clarify the tasks and responsibilities of grassroots legislative contact points, and deeply listen to the opinions of grassroots people and relevant parties

  The establishment of grassroots legislative contact points is an important institutional innovation in my country's legislative work in recent years.

The draft amendment stipulates that the working body of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress shall set up grassroots legislative contact points according to actual needs, and listen to the opinions of grassroots people and relevant parties on the draft law and legislative work.

  Tong Weidong, director of the National Law Office of the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, introduced that since 2015, as of December 2022, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has solicited grassroots legislative contacts on 142 (times) draft laws and legislative work plans. More than 15,000 comments and suggestions were received, of which more than 2,800 were adopted.

  "From the perspective of local legislative practice, the grassroots legislative contact points have built a bridge between the masses and the legislature, especially for laws related to people's livelihood, which have solicited a lot of insights from the grassroots, making legislation more scientific." Liang Yinghua said.

  Tang Weijian said that the entry of the grassroots legislative contact point system into the law is a concrete manifestation of the concept of "developing the whole process of people's democracy" and the principles of scientific legislation and democratic legislation in the revised draft, and will provide a clear legal basis for the grassroots legislative contact point system , to further promote the development of practice.

Aspect 4: Improve the scope of local legislative powers, strengthen adaptation to local conditions and regional coordination

  The current Legislative Act grants local legislative powers to all districted municipalities.

This draft revision adds "grassroots governance" to the legislative authority of districted cities, and at the same time changes "environmental protection" to "ecological civilization construction".

This means that the legislative authority of a city divided into districts is expected to be further expanded.

  "The boundary of local legislative authority determines the scope of local legislation's participation in social governance." Rizan believes that in the past, the legislative power of cities divided into districts only had three items: "urban and rural construction and management, environmental protection, and historical and cultural protection", which was difficult to satisfy local governments. development needs.

Expanding the legislative authority of cities divided into districts meets the actual needs of local innovative governance.

  The revised draft also incorporates the experience and achievements of local coordinated legislative practice in recent years, and clarifies that the people's congresses and their standing committees of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the central government, cities divided into districts, and autonomous prefectures can coordinate the formulation of local regulations according to the needs of coordinated regional development.

  Tong Weidong said that at present, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta and other places have formed a relatively mature collaborative legislative work mechanism, which has played an active role in cross-regional ecological environmental protection, air pollution prevention and control, joint epidemic prevention and control, and transportation integration.

The revision here provides a clear legal basis for the establishment of a coordinated legislative work mechanism for the localities, and provides institutional support for the implementation of the regional coordinated development strategy.

  Gao Zicheng suggested that local legislation should be adapted to local conditions. On the basis of adhering to the original intention of the legislation, limited legislative resources should be used to solve prominent problems in various places, closely follow the overall situation of the country and practical needs, improve the shortcomings of national legislation, and help the new development pattern.

For regions with a high degree of integration, it is recommended to add a new regional legislative body, focus on difficult and blocked points in the region, and strengthen the overall planning of coordinated legislation.

(Xinhua News Agency reporters Bai Yang, Ren Qinqin, Zou Duowei)