Life of Guangzhou - China to Revise Budget Law

China's top legislature will review a draft revision to the Budget Law in August, which aims to improve the budgetary work and make government budgets more transparent to the public, a legislator said on Wednesday.

Revising the Budget Law is an important part of the legislative work of the 11th national People's Congress (NPC), said Gao Qiang, vice chairman of the NPC Financial and Economic Affairs Committee and director of the NPC Standing Committee's Budgetary Affairs Commission, on the sidelines of the annual parliament session.

Gao said the revision will ensure that "budgets are more complete" and will clearly state that "all the government's revenue and expenditures should be included in budget."

It was common in the past few years that local governments recorded much more revenue than as budgeted, and the surplus was not supervised by people's congresses, said Gao.

The Budget Law took effect in March 1994 and the revision work has lasted two years.

Gao said the revision also states punishments for those breaching the budget law.

Gao said "all budgets submitted to the legislature must be made public on government websites.

Reform of laojiao System

A Chinese legislative official said Wednesday that the top lawmaking body would speed up legislation on "education and correction of illegal acts" this year in an effort to "reform and standardize" the country's reeducation through labor system.

The draft law on education and correction of illegal acts is listed in this year's legislation plan, said Li Fei, deputy director of the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, while speaking on the sidelines of the annual parliament session.

He said the drafting of the law has taken several years and "it is also part of the country's judicial reform."

The law mainly targets illegal acts of repeat offenders, who refuse to follow the law despite receiving repeated warnings but their acts are not serious enough to be punished by the Criminal Law, Li said.

The new law aims to change the subject's illegal acts through education and rectification, so as to reduce and prevent crimes and maintain social order, he said.

Li said the law is based upon China's conditions and is consistent with relevant international conventions.

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