By Cui Can
China has seen a significant increase in new laws over the past decade, and its lawmaking work has reflected whole-process people's democracy, an official from China's top legislative body said on Monday.
In the past decade, the National People's Congress (NPC) adopted amendments to the Constitution, and the NPC and its standing committee formulated 68 laws and revised 234 laws, said Xu Anbiao, a member of the Standing Committee of the NPC and deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the NPC, at a press conference Monday.
Xu said that, compared with a decade before, the number of newly formulated laws in China increased by a third, and the number of revised laws saw a nearly two-fold increase.
By expanding the channels of public participation in legislation, democratic lawmaking is ensured through improved systems for solicitation of public opinion during the processes of drafting, deliberation, and adoption of draft laws, so that the legislations reflect the common will and interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, Xu said.
"Over the past 10 years, more than 3.5 million opinions were collected from 1.19 million people, contributing to 205 pieces of legislation," he added.
In addition, Xu recognized the role of grassroots-level legislation contact point played in ensuring whole-process people's democracy through the legislative work.
The contact point is set up by the Standing Committee of the NPC at communities across China to hear citizens' opinion on legislation.
Currently, public opinion is being solicited on more than 130 draft laws through a total of 22 legislation contact points across the country, according to Xu.
