LAWMAKING IN CHINA: DEVELOPMENT, ISSUES AND RETHINKING

Abstract

Since the Reform and Opening period commenced, lawmaking in China has made great achievements, constructed a lawmaking institution composed of constitution, laws, administrative and local rules and regulations as the source of law, and a legal system composed of constitutional and related law, administrative law, criminal law, civil and commercial law, economic law, social law, and procedure law. However, lawmaking in China faces new issues needing resolution. This paper focuses on the relation of lawmaking between the National People’s Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee (SC), between the NPC and the administrative and local organs. Because most laws are enacted by the SC with a small number of elites, but not the NPC with a large number of deputies, the challenge lies in how to represent the people and ensure the people’s character of the laws. As the administrative and local organs enact the rules and regulations, how can their conformation to the Constitution and laws be ensured? Is it enough to only depend on an original deliberative mechanism? China needs to create and develop new mechanisms to resolve these issues.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Thomson Reuters