The Beijing Municipal People's Congress, the capital city's legislative body, has strengthened supervision over how the local government implements the Administrative Licensing Law, which went effective on July 1.

Eleven municipal government departments, including the Beijing Municipal Urban Affairs Management Commission and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security, were examined by the congress during the past three months.

The law is the latest legislative item to regulate government behaviors following the Administrative Procedure Law, the State Compensation Law, the Administrative Penalties Law and the Administrative Review Law, officials said.

"Effective improvements have been made by the Beijing municipal government in implementing the Administrative Licensing Law," Wang Jiayan, vice-director of the law enforcement inspection team of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, said.

He also emphasized various problems in the current government administrative licensing work.

"Some important systems for administrative licensing, such as public hearings and compensation systems have still not matured. Then citizens' rights prescribed in the law are difficult to be guaranteed by relevant government systems," Wang said.

It was also discovered in the examination, sometimes in secret, that some government agencies collected fees from applicants, which is forbidden by the law.

Government departments found with problems in examinations responded rapidly to improve, said Huang Yuqing, a member of the law enforcement inspection team.

For example, the Beijing Municipal Urban Affairs Management Commission was found last month not to have established a special office with special workers to deal with administrative licensing affairs.

After being informed, the commission immediately established a special agency for that purpose, as a re-examination found out two days later, according to Huang.

(China Daily November 29, 2004)