After debating for five years, China's top legislative body
believes the latest version of the landmark property bill is
"relatively well-written" and suggests a quicker vote to pass it
into law, a legislative report said.
Lawmakers with the Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress, or the national legislature, began on Sunday a penal
discussion of the sixth version of property bill. Wu Bangguo, chairman of the committee, chaired
the legislative session.
The report from the NPC Standing Committee provided to Xinhua
said legislators "have achieved consensus on major issues and
consider the draft is well-written."
Legislators think major provisions properly reflect the current
economic development in China and have room for further
improvement. They suggest the bill be delivered to voting at a full
session of NPC as soon as possible, the report said.
The bill was first submitted to the legislature in 2002 and had
gone through fifth readings. No laws have ever had more than five
readings in the NPC's history.
The bill was withdrawn from the NPC's full session in March 2006
amid worries that such a law, the country's first to protect
private ownership, could undermine China's socialist system if the
rights of individuals superceded state right to care for the
collective good.
Opposition faded after drafters revised the fifth version,
debated last August, which put state ownership rights at the heart
of the economic system.
The latest draft makes "the protection of state, collective, and
private property" the main principle of the legislation
process.
(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2006)