Top legislature ends bi-monthly session, adopting amnesty deal in China

China's top legislature ended its latest session on Saturday, adopting a prisoner amnesty deal as well as several law amendments.

The amnesty deal will see thousands of war veterans as well as very old, young or infirm prisoners granted official pardon, in a move marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II on Sept. 3.

The deal, promulgated by President Xi Jinping on Saturday, comes 40 years after China granted an amnesty to war criminals in 1975, and 56 years after it granted its first pardon to non-war criminals in 1959.

Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the National People Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, presided over the closing meeting Saturday.

Legislators agreed to repeal the crime of sex with underage prostitutes and reclassify it as rape, which would face a tougher punishment, as the amendments to Criminal Law were passed.

They also agreed to rule out commutation for most corrupt figures.

Legislators voted for amendments to the Air Pollution Control Law that will restrict various sources of air pollution and boost environmental transparency.

Zhang urged legislators to make full revision of the Air Pollution Control Law.

The top legislature also adopted amendments to three laws that aim at giving more powers to local legislatures and a bill that will give greater incentives to both academia and their inventors to commercially utilize their work.

Zhang urged related departments to fully implement the revised law in a bid to improve the application of China's scientific and technologic results.

Moreover, legislators adopted an amendment to the Law on Commercial Banks, removing a 75 percent loan-to-deposit ratio stipulation, and a decision on imposing a ceiling for local government debt in 2015, which is16 trillion yuan (2.505 trillion U.S. dollars).

Legislators ratified an agreement on running an office to coordinate macroeconomic policies between ASEAN countries, China, Japan and Republic of Korea, the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO); the 2006 Maritime Labor Convention (MLC), an International Labor Organization convention; and approved two treaties with the United Kingdom and Belgium respectively both on judicial assistance in criminal cases.

Legislators after the ending of the session attended a seminar on China's charity work.

China's top legislature now has 2,950 members.

Source: XINHUA