{"id":792,"date":"2020-06-26T16:50:11","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T23:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cals\/?p=792"},"modified":"2020-06-26T20:59:49","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T03:59:49","slug":"the-ascendance-of-the-resolution-power-in-chinas-parliamentary-bodies-written-by-julie-qiu-and-wei-cui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cals\/2020\/06\/26\/the-ascendance-of-the-resolution-power-in-chinas-parliamentary-bodies-written-by-julie-qiu-and-wei-cui\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ascendance of the Resolution Power in China\u2019s Parliamentary Bodies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/a>Written By:\u00a0Julie Qiu<\/a>\u00a0 and Wei Cui<\/a><\/p>\n

Posted on: June 26, 2020<\/p>\n

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Peng Zhen speaking at a conference<\/a> of the NPC Legal Affairs Commission<\/p>\n

Since the COVID-19 epidemic broke out in Wuhan in January 2020, sub-national People\u2019s Congresses (PCs) in many Chinese provinces and cities have announced policies<\/a> regarding the control and prevention of the disease and economic recovery. Many of the policy documents promulgated have the same function and effect as local statutes<\/a> (difang fagui<\/em>), and have been pronounced as having the effect of law. But they often came with the title of \u201cdecisions\u201d or \u201cresolutions\u201d (jueding<\/em>).\u00a0 Both in name and in the procedure of adoption, this particular parliamentary instrument is to some extent distinguishable from the adoption of local statutes under the Law on Legislation<\/a>. In previous decades, it was seldom used independently in providing for individual\u2019s legal rights and obligations.<\/p>\n

To invoke potential comparisons with non-statutory parliamentary actions in Canada<\/a> and other jurisdictions<\/a>, we provisionally refer to these instruments as \u201cresolutions\u201d. The subnational parliamentary \u201cresolutions\u201d on COVID-19 that were adopted in February and March 2020 are related to the increasingly frequent exercise by Chinese PCs of their resolution power<\/em><\/strong> regarding \u201cmajor issues\u201d (zhongda shixiang jueding quan<\/em>) in the last few years. This potentially important development has not been previously noted in Western media or scholarship. We offer a brief background on the history and legal basis of the resolution power.<\/p>\n

Article 104 of China\u2019s Constitution grants PCs above the county level the power to \u201cdiscuss and decide\u201d major issues in all fields of work in its jurisdiction. Article 44 (4) of Organization Law for Local People’s Congresses and Local People’s Governments at All Levels (Local Organizational Law) further provides that PCs above the county level have the powers to discuss and decide major issues in \u201cpolitics, economy, education, science, culture, public health, protection of the environment and natural resources, and civil and ethnic affairs in their jurisdictions\u201d. While these may be regarded as the Constitutional and fundamental legal basis for PCs\u2019 resolution power, they clearly say little about the extent of the power, nor how it would be exercised. Instead PCs are granted discretion to make rules themselves regarding this aspect of their competence.<\/p>\n

The powers of PCs in China are sometimes said to be divided into four types: legislative, supervisory, appointment and removal, and decision-making on major issues (the so-called
\n“Four Powers\u201d). This conceptual division is attributed to Peng Zhen<\/a> (in an important speech given in 1980) and has been kept in use by scholars in China. The evolving relationship of the resolution power to the other three parliamentary powers has gone through two periods.<\/p>\n

1982-2013: the Resolution Power depended on the exercise of the other powers<\/strong><\/p>\n

PCs\u2019 Resolution Power was written into the Chinese Constitution in 1982. However, from 1982 to 2013, the central roles of PCs were seen as performing their legislative and supervisory functions. Under the leadership of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, resolutions were only used to render decisions related to legislative and supervisory procedures. Moreover, Jiang and Hu gave consistent emphasis to the legislative and supervisory powers of parliamentary bodies, relegating the resolution power to far lower prominence. For instance:<\/p>\n