ABSTRACT
More than two decades of rapid economic growth has fuelled China's transition from a centrally-planned to a market-oriented economy, necessitating the development of a legal system capable of fostering and protecting economic headway. Since China's reform and opening in 1978, its legal system has undergone an unprecedented expansion with the promulgation of myriad commercial and civil laws at national and local levels. While the emphasis on lawmaking contributed to the growing authority and capacity of the National People's Congress (NPC) during this period, numerous contradictions, tensions and ambiguities materialized within the lawmaking system as a whole. Largely because of a shifting distribution of authority among the NPC, the State Council and sub-national (primarily provincial) people's congresses, the legislative arena is populated by self-interested actors with uneasy power relationships who engage in institutional turf wars at virtually every stage of the lawmaking process. Faced with the possibility of legislative disorder derailing modernization, in the early 1990s, China's leadership began to
consider a law on lawmaking to set out a clearly defined uniform legal hierarchy. 1
The Legislation Law (lifa fa) represents a significant attempt to produce a more orderly and open legislative system in China.2 Virtually unique in the world as a law on lawmaking, it deals with issues of a constitutional nature? Moreover, it represents an attempt by the NPC to solidify its position vis-a-vis other lawmaking and regulationmaking institutions, namely the State Council and provincial governments. While legal experts have criticized the promulgated Law for its many shortcomings, analysing the politics behind it offers insight into the current balance of power among China's major lawmaking institutions. Relying primarily on documentary and press analysis, as well as the author's participation in conferences of experts and lawmakers from across China, this article attempts to shed light on some of the intense positions taken by institutions engaged in protracted bureaucratic bargaining over fundamental questions of their purpose and authority within an evolving legislative system.
