China's national legislature calls Party leadership its 'greatest strength'

China’s national legislature underlined the Party’s leadership when summarizing its work over the past five years yesterday.

The leadership of the Communist Party of China is the essential element and greatest strength of the people’s congress system, said Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the 12th National People’s Congress Standing Committee, when delivering a work report of the committee at the first session of the 13th NPC.

“We must uphold the centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core,” Zhang said.

The national legislature should closely base the planning and advancement of its work on the overall work of the Party and the country, and promptly follow up on the needs of the Party and the people, he said.

The national legislature should fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, he added.

Over the past five years, the national legislature has enacted 25 laws, revised a further 127, passed 46 decisions on legal questions and other major issues, and issued nine legal interpretations.

In terms of their oversight duty, lawmakers have inspected enforcement of 26 laws and one legislative decision, heard and deliberated 83 work reports, and conducted 15 special inquiries and 22 research projects.

Efforts were made to raise public awareness of the Constitution. With the NPC Standing Committee’s decision, all officials have to publicly swear allegiance to the Constitution when taking office.

Zhang voiced his confidence in the people’s congress system. He also underlined the role of the people’s congresses in realizing the principle of “the people running the country” and advancing law-based governance. Although this system has proved to be an effective political system, Zhang said it does not mean that the national legislature can be complacent.

He suggested new mechanisms for legislative, oversight and deputy-related work should be explored, and efforts should be made to enrich and broaden the practices of people’s congresses.

According to the report, in next five years the national legislature will speed up compiling the civil code, formulate a foreign investment law and e-commerce law, and do research on formulating a real estate tax law.

Environment laws will be one of the priorities. The soil pollution prevention law will be drafted while the law on solid waste control will be revised. It also plans to revise the criminal procedure law and draft a community correction law.