1. Taking decisive steps toward creating a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics by both enacting new laws and sifting through existing ones

Last year was a key year for reaching the goal of creating a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics by 2010. While raising the quality of legislation, we made decisive progress in creating such a system by both enacting new laws and sifting through existing ones.

1) We revised the Electoral Law of the National People's Congress and Local People's Congresses and pressed ahead with the self-improvement and self-development of the socialist election system with Chinese characteristics. In order to implement the requirement set forth at the Seventeenth National Party Congress that we gradually achieve the goal of electing deputies to people's congresses based on the same population ratio in urban and rural areas, the NPC Standing Committee made the revision of the Electoral Law of the National People's Congress and Local People's Congresses a focus of its legislative work and promptly began this work. After conscientiously sorting through deputies' proposals and suggestions, conducting thorough investigations and studies, and listening to the opinions of a wide range of sources, we formulated a draft amendment to the Electoral Law. The Standing Committee held a meeting to perform a preliminary evaluation of the draft amendment in October, after which it posted the entire text of the draft on the NPC website and broadly solicited the opinions of the people and all sectors of society. The Standing Committee undertook a further evaluation of the draft at its December meeting and decided to present it to this session of the NPC for its deliberation and approval. The members of the Standing Committee all agree on the guiding ideology and work principles for this amendment to the Electoral Law. We believe that the amendment that proposes electing deputies to people's congresses based on the same population ratio in urban and rural areas and assures an appropriate number of deputies from every locality, ethnic group, and sector is in accord with the guiding principles of the Seventeenth National Party Congress, the realities of our country's economic and social development, and the willing of the people; better embodies the principle that all people, all localities, and all ethnic groups are equal; is beneficial for broadening the scope of people's democracy; and guarantees that the people are masters of the country. Everyone emphasized that amending the Electoral Law and pressing ahead with the self-improvement and self-development of the socialist election system with Chinese characteristics is an important aspect of upholding and improving the system of people's congresses and a necessary requirement for developing socialist democratic politics.

Amending the Electoral Law is a major issue in our legislative work and also an important item on the agenda of this session of the NPC. Before this session, we distributed the draft amendment to the Electoral Law to all NPC deputies and asked them to carefully read, discuss, and comment on it as necessary preparation for deliberation of it at this session. The Standing Committee has also explained the draft amendment at this session. We believe that through the efforts of all deputies, we can amend and improve the Electoral Law.