Legislature adopts revisions to road safety law

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Wu Bangguo (C), chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), presides over the closing meeting of the 20th session of the Standing Committee of the 11th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, April 22, 2011. The bimonthly NPC session came to a conclusion here Friday. [Xinhua]

China's top legislature on Friday ended its three-day bimonthly session, adopting an amendment to the country's Road Traffic Safety Law that imposes harsher penalties on drunk drivers.

Drunk drivers in China will face revocation of their driver's licenses, according to the amendment. Following the revocation, drivers will have to wait five years to recover the licenses, as outlined in the amendment.

The amendment also permanently revokes the driver's license of anyone who causes an accident that is serious enough to constitute a crime while under the influence of alcohol.

The top legislature also voted to adopt amendments to laws regarding coal miners and construction workers in an effort to improve their insurance coverage.

Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said that the revisions of the three laws were made to ensure consistency between the Social Insurance Law and the newly amended Criminal Law. This would ensure a scientific and unified law system.

Wu also said that lawmakers generally agreed on the draft amendment to the Personal Income Tax Law, which was submitted to the session for the first time. The lawmakers also put forward some suggestions.

The draft amendment will be made public to solicit feedback and will be put to a vote at the top legislature as soon as possible after it undergoes further revisions based on public opinion, according to Wu.

The draft amendment will increase the minimum threshold for personal income tax from 2,000 yuan (306 U.S. dollars) per month to 3,000 yuan and will cut the number of income tax brackets from nine to seven.

The changes are part of China's efforts to make after-tax income more equitable, said Finance Minister Xie Xuren during a speech on the first day of the session.

Additionally, Chinese President Hu Jintao signed presidential decrees to enact the revised law.

Also on Friday, lawmakers at the session voted to approve a decision to enhance legal education and publicity in the country.

The country will carry out a five-year program from 2011 through 2015 to ensure that the public is well educated and informed about the country's legal system, according to the decision.

Wu said that conducting in-depth legal education and publicity aims to enhance awareness of law in society.

Government workers, especially officials at various levels, should improve their familiarity with the law and do their work in accordance with the law to create a sound legal environment, he said.

China is now in an important period of strategic opportunities as well as in a period when social contradictions are likely to arise, and there are more and more unstable factors which may negatively impact social harmony, he said.

China has high-profile problems related to food safety, land appropriation, house demolitions, and environmental protection, not because of a lack of laws and regulations, nor because officials and government workers do not know the laws, according to Wu.

Such problems exist "mainly because they did not abide by the law in their work and did things in their own way, causing contradictions that could have been prevented or defused to evolve into big problems," he said.

"And some even abuse their power or bend the law for personal gain, which results in great harm," he said.

Wu urged officials and government workers to be models in studying the law and to improve their capability in doing their work in accordance with the law to ensure that the power endowed by the people is used to seek the people's interests.

At the session, which concluded Friday, the top legislature terminated the eligibility of Dong Yong'an as a deputy to the 11th NPC.

Dong, the former head of the Henan provincial communication bureau, was expelled from the top legislature "for suspected violations of disciplines and law," according to the NPC Standing Committee. It did not specify what the violations were.

At the concluding session, the top legislature appointed Huang Xiaojing and Wang Qingxi as vice chairmen of the NPC's Environment and Resources Protection Committee.

Huang was the former governor of Fujian Province. Meanwhile, Wang served as vice secretary-general of the NPC Standing Committee.

On Friday afternoon, the members of the NPC Standing Committee attended a lecture on the concept and significance of the legal system, which was presided over by Wu Bangguo.

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