BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The following is the full text of the
Explanation on the Draft Property Law of the People's Republic of China
delivered by Wang Zhaoguo, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress (NPC) at the Fifth Session of the Tenth NPC on
Thursday.
Formulation of the General Principles for Enacting the Property Law and
Drafting of the Property Law started in 1993. The Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress has attached great importance to the enactment of the
law. In December 2002, the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's
Congress included the property law in the draft civil code for preliminary
deliberation. The current Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
has included the enactment of the property law in the agenda of important
subjects and devoted a lot of time and energies to the work. In order to make a
success of the job, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has
been adhering to the principle of democratic and scientific legislation. In July
2005, it published the draft property law and collected over 10,000 comments and
suggestions from the people. Moreover, it held over 100 forums and a number of
demonstration meetings, and conducted investigation and study on special
subjects in some places, thus fully soliciting the views expressed by people
from different quarters, deputies to the National People's Congress, people at
the grass-roots level, specialists and scholars, and people from the central
departments concerned. In the process, a lot of comments and suggestions were
put forward. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has
attached great importance to the opinions expressed and deliberated the draft on
six occasions, which is something unprecedented in the history of legislation in
China. The general principles for enacting the property law are: with Deng
Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of "Three Represents" as the guidance,
materializing the scientific concept on development in an all-round way, keeping
to the correct political orientation and giving a full and accurate expression
to and upholding the basic socialist economic system on the basis of the
specific conditions and realities of our country; applying the principle of
equal protection to the property of the State, the collective and the individual
in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and laws and, at the same
time, strengthening the protection of State-owned property against the loss of
such property; giving a full and accurate expression to the basic policies of
the Party in the rural areas at the present stage and safeguarding the interests
of the large numbers of farmers; and in view of the problems in real life that
need urgent regulation, conducting overall coordination of all kinds of
interests and relationships, in order to promote social harmony. In short, in
formulating the property law, we must, from beginning to end, keep to the
correct political orientation and the Chinese characteristics of the property
law and persist in proceeding from the realities in all aspects. On the basis of
the principles mentioned above and thanks to the rational comments and
suggestions expressed by all quarters and to repeated discussion and revision of
the draft, the final draft embodies greater changes compared with the initial
one. When the component members of the Standing Committee deliberated the draft
at the 25th Meeting of the current Standing Committee of the NPC, they highly
valued and fully affirmed the draft, believing that the draft embodied the unity
of the Party's position and the will of the people, represented a
crystallization of the wisdom of the collective, and was about to be mature. The
decision on submitting the draft to the Fifth Session of the Tenth National
People's Congress for deliberation was adopted by an overwhelming majority vote.
After the Meeting, the General Office of the Standing Committee delivered the
draft property law to the deputies to the National People's Congress according
the statutory procedure on last January 12 and made arrangements for them to
study and discuss the draft in preparation for deliberation. Further amendment
to the draft was made on the basis of the suggestions made by some deputies
during discussion, hence the present draft submitted to the Session for the
deliberation. The draft is composed of five parts, with 247 articles under 19
chapters.
