ABSTRACT

Law making is the area of greatest achievement in the legal field in post-Mao China. The number of laws has rapidly increased since 1978. By the end of August 2009, the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee had enacted 229 laws, covering seven legal fields, i.e., the Constitution and constitutional law, civil and commercial law, administrative law, economic law, social law, criminal law, and law of procedure and extrajudicial procedure; the State Council has in effect made 682 administrative regulations; the local people’s congresses and their standing committees, more than 7,000 local regulations; the local congresses of the national autonomous areas, more than 600 regulations; the legislatures of the five special economic zones, more than 200 regulations in total; in addition, the departments under the State Council and local governments vested with the power of legislation have made over 20,000 rules.1