The adoption of the Criminal Procedure Law in 1996 has led to some awkward moments for the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice, because the four have had different interpretations of the law.

　 The National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, China' s highest legislature, today discussed the draft Legislation Law, designed to standardize the country's law-making process.

　 The draft says that only the NPC Standing Committee and the Supreme People's Court have the authority to interpret the specific enforcement of the law; the procuratorial and governmental departments have no such authority.

　 Statistics show that the NPC and its Standing Committee passed 350 laws and regulations and the State Council drew up more than 700 administrative regulations over the past two decades. And in the past five years, China's local legislatures and governments issued over 4,200 regulations.

　 Following the principle of the rule of law, China sped up its pace of creating legislation, but also witnessed an increase of problems in law enforcement resulting from different interpretations of the newly-passed laws.

　 Cheng Siwei, deputy chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said that when drafting laws, the overall interests of the state and society should be taken into consideration.

　 The draft also provides that the NPC and its Standing Committee have the exclusive legislative rights over the compulsory measures and punishments relating to the political rights and personal freedoms of Chinese citizens, and also over civil codes on intellectual property rights, marriage and inheritance.