China's top legislature ends bimonthly session

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) closed its bimonthly session here Saturday, easing the one-child policy and abolishing reeducation through labor. Lawmakers passed two important resolutions through votes at the session's final meeting. One resolution allows couples to have two children if either parent is an only child, a key change to the birth control rules. The resolution, equal to a legal document in China, entrusts provincial congresses and their standing committees to make their own calls on implementation of the new policy. Another resolution, which takes effect on Saturday, abolishes legal documents on "laojiao" (reeducation through labor). The resolution stresses that all legal laojiao penalties before the abolition of the system remain valid, but after abolition, those still serving laojiao time will be set free. Their remaining terms will not be enforced. Lawmakers also approved a motion to streamline business administration through changes to seven laws, exempting more items from central government approval: administration of pharmaceuticals, customs procedures, fisheries, marine environment protection, metrology and the tobacco onopoly. The top legislature approved a treaty between China and Kyrgyzstan on exchange of convicted nationals serving jail terms in either country. It also fixed the date for the next annual session of NPC in Beijing on March 5 next year. The suggested agenda for the session includes the government work report; implementation of the annual plan on economic and social development in 2013; a draft plan on national economic and social development in 2014; central and local budgets in 2013; and the draft central and local budgets for 2014. The session will also hear and deliberate work reports by the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. Before the closing meeting of the session, chair and vice chairs of the NPC Standing Committee held a meeting to decide what bills to be put to the vote. Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, delivered a speech at the closing meeting of the six-day bimonthly session of the NPC Standing Committee, saying that with improvements to the rule of law, the historical mission of the reeducation through labor system had been completed. He said that family planning, as one of China's fundamental policies, must be adhered to in the long run, adding that it is necessary to adjust the policy based on economic and social development and changes to the population structure. The legislative session also read a draft amendment to the Administrative Procedure Law. Zhang said that administrative litigation system relates to public power exertion and the protection of citizen's legitimate rights. Members of the committee widely agreed that amending the Administrative Procedure Law is necessary to alleviate citizens' difficulties in filing cases in which governments are defendants, allowing courts to hear such cases and implementing the verdicts, he added. Zhang presided over a lecture on implementation of the decisions of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China after the session closed.