Full Text: Work report of NPC Standing Committee(9)

2. We will carry out our oversight functions in accordance with the law and strengthening oversight of the State Council, Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Strengthening the NPC's oversight is a necessary requirement for implementing the rule of law as the basic strategy. The Eighteenth National Party Congress set forth the requirement that people's congresses should step up their oversight of people's governments, courts and procuratorates, and tighten their examination and oversight of all government budgets and final accounts. The Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth CPC Central Committee stressed the need to strengthen the system under which people's governments, courts and procuratorates are engendered by people's congresses, responsible to them and subject to their oversight; the need to strengthen people's congresses' function of examining and overseeing government budgets and final accounts and overseeing state assets; and that people's congresses should actively respond to issues of public concern through the use of inquiries, interpellations and investigations into specific problems and records review. We need to fully implement the guidelines of the Central Committee and the provisions of the Oversight Law and raise the NPC's oversight work to a new level.

First, we need to exercise our oversight power in accordance with the law. People's congresses' oversight of the people's governments, courts and procuratorates is legally effective oversight exercised on behalf of the country and people, and reflects the constitutional principle that all state power belongs to the people. People's congresses' power to exercise oversight is a statuary power, as are the procedures and methods for exercising it. The NPC and its Standing Committee should faithfully carry out the duties conferred on it by the Constitution and laws, exercise oversight courageously and effectively, and ensure that oversight work is done within the legally specified limits of power and in accordance with legally specified procedures.

Second, we need to exercise oversight in light of the Party and country's work. We need to focus oversight on major reform, development and stability issues and on sensitive issues of particular concern to the people; strengthen oversight of compliance with the Constitution and laws; strengthen constraints on and oversight of the exercise of power; give impetus to the implementation of the Central Committee's major policy decisions and agendas; correctly balance overseeing the State Council, Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate and supporting their work, and see to it that they administer affairs in accordance with the law and administer justice fairly; and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations.

Third, we need to improve the way oversight work is carried out. We will continue to carry out inquiries on special topics, improve methods of organization and work mechanisms, and make work more targeted and effective. We will improve the system for records review of administrative regulations, local statutes, judicial interpretations and other normative documents. We will improve the way we inspect compliance with laws, exercise oversight and conduct investigations and studies, conscientiously listen to and respond to people's concerns, and raise weighty criticisms and suggestions with a definite purpose in mind. We will exhort those, to whom Standing Committee members have made suggestions after deliberations, to conscientiously look into and handle these suggestions and improve their work in earnest.

On the basis of the above principles and thinking on oversight work, the main oversight work the Standing Committee this year will be as follows:

First, we will investigate compliance with the Tourism Law and the Patent Law, and promote comprehensive and correct implementation of them.

Second, we will listen to and deliberate reports on the country's plan for economic and social development and central and local government budgets as well as on the final accounts and auditing work of the central government, deliberate and approve the central government's final accounts for 2013, listen to and deliberate the report on the allocation and use of government spending on water conservancy, carry out special investigations and studies on the preparation and management of departmental budgets, give impetus to the implementation of the general work guideline of making progress while maintaining stability, carry out reform and innovation in all areas of economic and social development, and genuinely improve the quality and returns of economic development.

Third, we will listen to and deliberate reports of the State Council on deepening reform of the system of government review and approval and strengthening financial supervision and regulation to prevent financial risks, carry out special investigations and studies on compliance with the Civil Service Law, give impetus to the implementation of the Central Committee's policy decisions and agendas for comprehensively deepening reform in order to accelerate reforms in important areas.

Fourth, we will listen to the report of the State Council on conserving energy and reducing emissions; investigate compliance with the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law; carry out special investigations and studies on preventing and controlling soil pollution; exhort relevant departments to solve prominent environmental problems; and strengthen ecological conservation.

Fifth, we will listen to and deliberate reports of the State Council on carrying forward the development of social security systems for urban and rural residents in a holistic way, the building of a new countryside, and production safety; investigate compliance with the Law on the Protection of Minors; carry out special investigations and studies on economic and social development in ethnic minority areas; respond to the people's concerns; and exhort relevant departments to solve prominent problems that concern the people the most and affect their vital interests.

Sixth, we will separately listen to and deliberate reports of the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate on how they have been standardizing their judicial conduct in order to improve judicial fairness, promote social fairness and justice, and ensure that the people can live and work in peace and contentment.