The draft law is being amended after its first hearing at the 29th meeting of the ninth National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee held last August.

Legal experts here regard the draft law as symbolic that China's top legislature, the NPC and its regional bodies, will more closely monitor administrations, the courts and procuratorate.

According to China's Constitution, one of the principal tasks of the NPC is to oversee the work of all administrative, judicial and procuratorial authorities. The NPC has played an increasingly important role in the country's political life.

The annual report of the court of Shenyang, the capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, failed to pass a review by the city's People's Congress in February last year.

It was for the first time the People's Congress rejected a report of this kind, which won it applause from the whole society.

Ten months later in Chengcheng County, a small town in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the local People's Congress also turned down a report submitted by the court about how to handle its internal problems.

The local People's Congress had asked the court to improve its efficiency and prevent corruption but considered the response from the court two months later unsatisfactory.

The Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Beihai in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region urged the police to carry out an in-depth probe last November of a criminal gang that preyed on the city for seven years.

In December, 2001, the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Nanjing in east China's Jiangsu Province dismissed a senior official from the municipal government for causing trouble when drunk.

The NPC has reviewed the annual report from the National Audit Office and publicly denounced malpractice in the central government in recent years.

A number of provincial and municipal people's congresses have tightened their monitoring of government budgets.

"Even though the Constitution has laid down the basic principles, there is still no specific law to guide the national and local people's congresses," said Wang Weicheng, chairman of the NPC Law Committee.

Local people's congresses from experience have developed a lot of effective methods to carry out such monitoring but without legal support.

The law on supervision will provide a detailed legal framework to facilitate their work, Wang added.

(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2002)