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Furthermore, the Legislation Law effective as from July 1, 2000 also provides that the people’s congress of a province or a city where the special economic zone is located and its sanding committee shall, pursuant to an enabling decision issued by the NPC, enact local statutes for implementation within the special economic zone.
The peoples congresses and governments in special economic zones, according to the decisions and resolution of the NPC, have formulated a large number of economic statutes and regulations market-oriented which accelerated the establishment of market economy system in the special economic zones and meanwhile, accumulated rich experiences for NPC’s legislation on the establishment of socialist market economy.
Legislation of special administrative region
On July 1, 1997 and December 20, 1999, upon China’s resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Macao Special Administrative Region were established directly under the Central People’s Government. The two regions enjoy, apart from matters relating to national defense and foreign affairs which are the responsibilities of the Central Government, a high degree of autonomy. According to the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and the Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, the Legislative Council is the legislature of the region and exercises the legislative power, including enact, amend, repeal or suspend (exclusive power in Macao’s basic law) laws. Laws enacted by the legislature of the regions must be reported to the Standing Committee of the NPC for the record. The reporting for record shall not affect the entry into force of such laws. If the Standing Committee of the NPC, after consulting the Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong or Macao Special Administrative Region under it, considers that any law enacted by the legislature of the region is not in conformity with the provisions of the Basic Law regarding affairs within the responsibility of the Central Authorities or regarding the relationship between the Central Authorities and the region, the Standing Committee may return the law in question but shall not amend it. Any law returned by the Standing Committee of the NPC shall immediately be invalidated. This invalidation shall not have retroactive effect, unless otherwise provided for in the laws of the Region.
Legislation of local government
According to the local organic law amended in 1986, the local government was, for the first time, vested the law-making right. Article 60 of the local organic law provides:
The people’s government of a province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government may formulate rules in accordance with laws, administrative rules and regulations as well as the local regulations of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government, and report them to the State Council and the Standing Committee of the people’s congress at the corresponding level for the record. The people’s government of a city where a provincial or autonomous regional people’s government is located, or of a relatively large city, approved as such by the State Council, may formulated rules in accordance with laws, administrative rules and regulations as well as the local regulations of the province or autonomous region, and report them to the State Council, the standing committee of the people’s congress and people’s government of the province or autonomous region, and the standing committee of the people’s congress at the corresponding level for the record.
In addition, the Legislation Law also has the same provision (article 73) on the legislative power of local government. From the provision above-mentioned one may find out that there are four kinds of government who have the power of creating local regulation:
a. the government of province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government;
b. the government of a city where the provincial or autonomous regional people’s government is seated;
c. the government of the relatively large city approved by the State Council;
d. the government of special economic area. According to the authorization of the NPC, the governments of Shenzhen, Xiamen, Zhuhai and Shantou may formulate local regulations.
The matters to be prescribed in the local regulations, according to the Article 73 of the Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China, include:
a. matters for which enactment of local regulations is required in order to implement a national law, administrative regulation or local statute;
b. concrete matters which are within the regulatory scope of the local administrative jurisdiction.
After preceding analyses the source of local legislation can be summed up into four categories:
Local Statute: namely, statutory documents adopted by the local people congresses and their standing committees at the level of province, autonomous region, municipality directly under the central government; or of the city where the people’s government of the province or autonomous region is seated; or of the city where a special economic zone is located; or of the relatively large city approved by the State Council;
Autonomy Regulation and separate regulation: namely, normative documents concerning autonomous matters enacted by the people’s congresses in the autonomous regions;
Separate economic statute: namely, legal documents formulated by the people’s congress in the special economic zone;
Local Regulation: namely, executive documents made by the local government.
Information sources guide
In China, the local statutes and regulations are published in three forms: newspapers, government gazette and compilation. When a local statute or regulation is enacted, it is published firstly in the major local newspapers, and then on the government gazette. At the end of the year they are usually bound together to form a collection. Some chronological publications with official nature such as yearbook often includes the local legal documents important of this region. In recent years along with the emergence and development of e-government, more and more government websites at various levels have mushroomed in the internet from where the public can also obtain a good deal of local legal information. Furthermore, the Legislation Law also provides that upon promulgation, a local statute, or an autonomous regulation or special regulation shall be published in the bulletin of the standing committee of the people’s congress of the region and the newspapers circulated within such jurisdiction in a timely manner. The version appearing on the bulletin shall be the standard version. Those local regulation shall also be published in this way.
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