Local Legislatures Tighten Supervision

Provincial, lower-level congresses and their standing committees have stepped up their efforts in executing constitutional rights of supervising governments and judiciaries in the past 20 years.

A People's Congress usually convenes a plenary session once a year. Provincial-level legislatures have promulgated more than 70, 000 local laws since 1979. A normal day for people's congresses' includes deliberating government and judiciary work reports.

In 1997, the Migration Bureau in central China's Hunan Province found that provincial legislature misappropriate funds to build its own "training centers" intended to resettle migrants. Criminal suspects in the bureau have been brought to the courts.

Local legislatures have been found to be especially active in assessing work performances of government and court officials and prosecutors who were elected by them.

In recent years, more than 2,200 government officials and 1,100 law enforcers have been asked to deliver work performance reports to legislators of southern Guangdong Province. As a result, more than 1000 mishandled cases have been corrected and more than 100 officials prosecuted.

It has become a rule for legislatures to send inspection teams to various places under their jurisdiction to see how laws or a particular law have been implemented. Hotlines are usually opened to solicit public opinions and complaints. Most local legislatures focus their attention on judicial corruption which has become rampant throughout China.

In northern Hebei Province, 2,444 cases of judicial corruption were uncovered and 471 law-enforcement officials have been charged.


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