ABSTRACT
Law making has become an increasingly large and important part of China’s broader “policy-making” process ever since the 1978 Third Plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee endorsed the development of “socialist legality". Power resources within the system are fragmented among the various leaders and bureaucracies involved in law making. Party leadership over law making takes four dominant organizational forms: preapproval of draft laws by the party center; involvement by the Central Political-Legal Leading Group; organizational control over key appointments; and control over meeting agendas, as well as heavy influence over the general tone of legislative debate. The assumption that the Central Political-Legal Leading Group plays the major guiding role in law making has long been a cornerstone of the traditional “top-down” image of law making in China. A key sticking point during the National People’s Congress debate over the 1989 Administrative Litigation Law concerned whether the Legislation Bureau or the court would draft the implementing regulations.
