2. We supervised and guided relevant authorities in completing the concentrated review of existing administrative regulations and local statutes.
Administrative regulations and local statutes are important components of the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics, and they play an important role in ensuring effective law enforcement, promoting administration in accordance with the law, and managing state and local affairs. Nevertheless, some existing regulations and statutes are unsuitable, uncoordinated or incomplete. Therefore, on the foundation of the concentrated review of existing laws completed in 2009, we focused on supervising and guiding relevant authorities in their concentrated review of existing administrative regulations and local statutes last year. The State Council and local people's congresses attached great importance to this work and, on the basis of a concentrated review, dealt with the regulations and statutes within their respective purview by type. By the end of last year, they had revised 107 administrative regulations and 1,417 local statutes, repealed 7 administrative regulations and 455 local statutes, and completed the concentrated review of existing administrative regulations and local statutes, thereby ensuring the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics was established on schedule in 2010.
3. We worked hard to make legislation more scientific and democratic.
First, we got NPC deputies to fully play their role in legislative work. Regardless of whether we were debating and making decisions concerning legislative items or drawing up and deliberating draft laws, we earnestly studied and drew upon suggestions expressed in deputies' bills and invited concerned deputies to participate in legislative work.
Second, we expanded the orderly participation of citizens in the legislative process. We adhered to and improved the mechanism for making draft bills public; selected issues raised in draft laws that are of widespread concern to the people and fully debated them; earnestly solicited opinions from a wide range of sources, especially people at the primary level; and constantly improved the drafts. The Vehicle and Vessel Tax Law is an important law of widespread concern to the people. In just the first month after the full text of the draft bill was published, we received nearly 100,000 comments from all sectors of society, which we conscientiously sorted out and analyzed, and promptly gave feedback on. Taking into account that roughly 87% of our country' s passenger vehicles have small or medium displacement and are mainly used by wage earners, we made important revisions to the draft bill on the basis of the views of the majority of respondents so that the law does not increase people' s tax burden yet helps to promote energy conservation and emissions reduction.
Third, we launched a pilot project last year for evaluating enacted legislation. We chose the Law on Scientific and Technological Progress, the Law on Promoting Agricultural Mechanization, the Law on the Popularization of Agricultural Technology, and the Environmental Protection Law to focus on. We analyzed, discussed and evaluated the system of laws, legal provisions, law enforcement and the degree of public satisfaction with laws by means of questionnaires, field investigations and studies, case studies and various other ways, and gained valuable experience in evaluating enacted legislation in an orderly manner.
