China improves legislation to protect human rights: Wu

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- China has improved the procedural, criminal and administrative legal systems to better protect human rights in the past five years, said Wu Bangguo, the country's top legislator, here Friday.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) 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, said Wu, when reviewing the work over the past five years.

The Standing Committee enacted the Law on Administrative Enforcement and revised the Law on State Compensation by striking a proper balance between powers and rights, Wu said when delivering the work report of the 11th NPC Standing Committee at the first session of the 12th NPC.

The enactment and revision of the laws has given state administrative, judicial and procuratorial bodies the powers they require while standardizing, constraining and overseeing their exercise of power and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations at the same time, he said.

The Standing Committee also revised the Criminal Procedure Law to properly balance punishing crime and protecting human rights and revised the Civil Procedure Law to better safeguard the procedural rights of parties to civil lawsuits, he said.