Full Text: Work report of NPC Standing Committee(4)

3. Making safeguarding the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people the starting point and objective of the work of the NPC

In China, all state power belongs to the people, and the people are the masters of the country and society. The people exercise state power and manage state and societal affairs and economic and cultural undertakings through people's congresses at all levels. We always upheld the principal position of the people, adhered to the mass line, derived wisdom from their practices and creations, and drew motivation from their demands for development. We worked hard to make the NPC's work better reflect the sentiments of the people, pool their wisdom and show concern for their wellbeing; and to realize, safeguard and develop the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people.

First, we improved democratic institutions and developed people's democracy. The right to vote is the people's basic right as masters of the country. Following the guiding principles of the Seventeenth CPC National Congress, we revised the Electoral Law of the National People's Congress and Local People's Congresses to ensure that deputies to people's congresses are elected based on the same population ratio in both urban and rural areas, and that people's congresses have an appropriate number of deputies from every ethnic group, region and sector, in order to more fully embody equality between all people, regions and ethnic groups. We formulated guidelines on electing new people's congresses at county and township levels across the country and electing deputies to the NPC, and made a decision on legal issues concerning the election of deputies to the Twelfth NPC. All localities upheld the leadership of the Party, brought democracy into full play, and strictly complied with the law, and on that basis smoothly completed the election of their new county and township people's congresses and elected their deputies to the Twelfth NPC. The deputy mix was further improved. This provided a firm organizational guarantee for upholding and improving the system of people's congresses.

Community-level democracy is an important institution ensuring that the people directly exercise their democratic rights in accordance with the law. The Standing Committee revised the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees, improved procedures for electing and dismissing members of villagers' committees, enhanced democratic procedural systems such as villagers' congresses and villagers' conferences, and strengthened regulations on transparency in and oversight and democratic discussion of village affairs, in order to ensure that villagers better exercise their right to conduct democratic elections, decision-making, administration and oversight. We investigated compliance with the Trade Union Law, stressed the need to rely on the working class wholeheartedly, and improved the democratic management system of enterprises and public institutions to ensure their employees' right to stay informed about, participate in, express views on and oversee their organization's affairs.

Second, we strengthened social legislation and oversight to safeguard and improve people's wellbeing. The Standing Committee enacted the Social Insurance Law to advance development of the social security system for both urban and rural residents. The law clearly states that the state establishes a social security system that includes basic old-age insurance, basic medical insurance, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance and maternity insurance. In addition, the Standing Committee also set forth provisions in principle on how to transfer basic old-age insurance accounts between localities, which is of the greatest concern to people; turn over unified management of basic old-age insurance funds to higher-level authorities; and establish a new old-age insurance system for rural residents and a new rural cooperative medical care system. In response to the aging of the population, we revised the Law on Guaranteeing the Rights and Interests of Senior Citizens so as to create the basic framework for a system of social services for seniors and progressively raise the level of guarantees. We listened to and deliberated reports on development of the rural social security system and on social aid, and set forth the requirements of quickly achieving full coverage of the new old-age insurance for rural residents, progressively raising government subsidies for subscribers to the new rural cooperative medical care system, providing social security for landless rural residents as soon as possible, and ensuring that poor urban and rural residents can meet basic living expenses. We organized an NPC special committee to make a follow-up investigation on development of the rural social security system, and listened to and deliberated their investigative reports. All this greatly spurred rural social security work, and the number of subscribers to the new rural old-age insurance system increased from 33.26 million at the beginning of 2010 to 460 million at the end of 2012.

Housing, medical care and education are major issues concerning the wellbeing of the people and are of great concern to them. The Standing Committee listened to and deliberated reports on building and managing government-subsidized urban housing and on progress in deepening reform of the medical and health care systems; conducted inquiries on these issues; and stressed the need to establish a mechanism of sustainable funding for building government-subsidized housing, strictly differentiate government-subsidized housing from second homes, and establish a sound mechanism for equitable distribution and operation of government-subsidized housing, in order to genuinely benefit low-income people with housing difficulties. The Standing Committee also emphasized that the reform of the medical and health care systems needs to give high priority to meeting people's demand for basic medical and health care and great efforts should be made to solve the problem of unaffordable and inadequate medical services, a problem people are very concerned about. To make compulsory education more standardized, the Standing Committee of the Tenth NPC revised the Law on Compulsory Education, which clearly stipulates that funding for compulsory education shall be included in government budgets and students receiving compulsory education shall be exempted from paying tuition and miscellaneous fees. The Standing Committee also investigated compliance with the law. This Standing Committee carried out more investigations for the same purpose, with the focus on promoting the implementation of the mechanism for ensuring funding for compulsory education. We also listened to and deliberated a report on the implementation of the National Medium- and Long-Term Plan for Education Reform and Development, and stressed the need to ensure that government spending on education should account for 4% of China's GDP in 2012.

Food and drinking water safety is vital to people's health and lives. To address serious problems of illegal use and misuse of food additives, the Standing Committee enacted the Law on Food Safety, which clearly stipulates that food additives may be used only if they are technically necessary and have been proved safe through risk assessment, and that when the use of a food addictive is necessary, the type, scope and concentration of the food additive used must strictly conform with food safety standards. We conducted two rounds of inspections on compliance with the law. On our urging, the State Council and its relevant departments improved the mechanism for coordinating food safety work and the system of food safety standards, created a risk monitoring and assessment mechanism for food safety, carried out a campaign to stop the illegal use and misuse of food additives, and investigated a number of prominent cases and brought the perpetrators to justice in accordance with the law. In order to help solve problems in ensuring drinking water safety for urban and rural residents, when we listened to and deliberated the State Council's report on the issue, we called for effectively strengthening protection and management of drinking water sources, energetically carrying out the project to ensure drinking water safety in rural areas, upgrading urban water supply networks, and improving capabilities to monitor the sources and quality of drinking water and respond to emergencies.

Eradicating poverty and bringing prosperity to all is an essential requirement of socialism. In accordance with the guiding principles of the 2011 Central Work Conference on Poverty Alleviation and Development, we made facilitating poverty alleviation and development an important aspect of our oversight work, and travelled to the old revolutionary base area in the Dabie Mountains and other contiguous poor areas to find out what the people there think and expect of the government. Basing ourselves in the present while looking ahead to the future, we proposed specific measures to encourage regions to use their local resource advantages to develop agriculture, launch a trial financial reform in rural areas, develop industrial parks and relocate industries to them, strengthen vocational education, and improve infrastructure. We strengthened communication and coordination with State Council departments and local governments to ensure that these measures were implemented. We did this as part of our efforts to find new ways for old revolutionary base areas to shake off poverty and develop in a scientific way. In addition, the Standing Committee listened to and deliberated reports on the economic and social development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas; arranged for special committees to conduct investigations and studies on this issue; and urged relevant authorities to earnestly implement the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy, carry out the central leadership's policies and measures for accelerating economic and social development of ethnic minority areas, and increase support for these areas to develop their infrastructure, industries with local advantages, and basic public services, and to advance poverty alleviation, development and ecological conservation so they might achieve leapfrog development.

Third, we improved the procedural, criminal and administrative legal systems to better respect and protect human rights. The revised Constitution passed by the Tenth NPC categorically stipulates that the state respects and protects human rights. In light of this constitutional principle and the central leadership's guidelines on reforming the judicial system, we revised the Criminal Procedure Law to properly balance punishing crime and protecting human rights, and considerably supplement and improve the current criminal procedure system in terms of the system of evidence, the system of defense, coercive measures, procedures for trials, and procedures for executing judgments. We revised the Civil Procedure Law to better safeguard the procedural rights of parties to civil lawsuits, improve the system of evidence, improve the mechanism for coordinating mediation and litigation, and strengthen oversight of civil litigation proceedings. To implement the penal policy of severity tempered with mercy, the Standing Committee of the Tenth NPC revised the Organic Law of the People's Courts so that the Supreme People's Court alone has the power to rule on cases carrying the death penalty, and this Standing Committee deliberated and passed Amendment VIII to the Criminal Law to remove 13 nonviolent economic crimes from the list of capital crimes, thereby making punishment better fit the crime. The administrative enforcement system and the state compensation system directly affect the exercise of public power and the protection of citizens' legitimate rights and interests. We enacted the Law on Administrative Enforcement and revised the Law on State Compensation by striking a proper balance between powers and rights and between powers and responsibilities, and giving state administrative, judicial and procuratorial bodies the powers they require while standardizing, constraining and overseeing their exercise of power, in order to avoid and prevent abuses of power and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations.