Laws on key issues to be amended

Environmental pollution, land disputes among issues on legislative agenda

Experts believe this year's National People's Congress legislative plan, which includes a list of issues attracting widespread public concern, can bring legislative work closer to social progress.

A number of laws dealing with issues currently confronting China, including environmental pollution and land disputes, will be amended this year, top legislator Wu Bangguo told an ongoing plenary session of the NPC on Friday.

Making an annual work report to NPC deputies, Wu also stressed that China has never copied Western political systems.

"We fully understood the essential difference between China's system of people's congresses and Western capitalist countries' systems of state power, resolutely resisted the influence of all kinds of erroneous thought and theories and maintained a firm and clear position on major issues of principle," he said, while reviewing the top legislature's work for the past five years.

The draft amendment to the Environmental Protection Law, which highlights government responsibility in environmental protection, was submitted to lawmakers for review in August for the first time. Wu said the top legislature will continue deliberating the draft this year.

Cao Mingde, an environmental law professor at China University of Political Science and Law, said he hopes the second reading can take in a suggestion to allow more public involvement in promoting a green and low-carbon society, especially in rural China.

Alecken Eminbahe, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Xinjiang People's Congress, said revision of the environmental code is a move to answer public concerns, which reflects the principle of coordinating legislative work with ongoing major issues in society.

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