China continues to strengthen legislative work

BEIJING - Over the past year, China continued to strengthen and improve legislative work, revising and improving existing laws and striving to raise the quality of legislation, China's top legislator said on Friday.

Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo delivers a work report of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) at a plenary meeting of the ongoing NPC annual session in Beijing on Friday. [Photo/Xinhua]

The draft revision to the Criminal Procedure Law has been submitted to the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) for deliberation and approval, Wu Bangguo, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee said.

He said in the work report of the NPC Standing Committee that revising the Criminal Procedure Law had been a focus of the legislative work of the NPC and its Standing Committee, and was of great interest to all sectors of society.

According to him, a total of 2,485 deputies to the current NPC have submitted proposals for revising the Criminal Procedure Law. The NPC Standing Committee fully studied these proposals and solicited a wide range of opinions on them.

"There is widespread agreement among the members of the Standing Committee that the draft follows the central leadership's guidelines on deepening the reform of the judicial system," Wu said.

He believed that through the deputies' hard work, the NPC Standing Committee can produce a good revised version of the law.

Moreover, Wu said over the past year the NPC Standing Committee enacted amendments to a number of important laws.

It adopted the Decision on Amending the Law on Personal Income Tax, which increases the salary threshold for personal income tax from 2,000 yuan ($317) to 3,500 yuan ($556) per month, the top legislator said.

"The amendments further lower the tax burden on middle- and low-income individuals and appropriately raise the tax burden on high-income individuals," Wu said.

According to Wu, over the past year, the NPC Standing Committee deliberated 24 bills, legal interpretations and draft decisions on legal issues, passed 14 of them, and has presented four of them to the current session for deliberation and approval.

He said the NPC Standing Committee had made legislation more scientific and democratic over the past year, expanding the orderly participation of citizens in legislation and actively responding to social concerns.