Monitoring and Analysis of the Quality of Municipal Legislation: A Case Study on the Legislation of People's Congresses in Prefecture-level Cities with Districts in China

Abstract

This article is devoted to the analysis of the quality of local legislation at the level of prefecture-level city with districts in the PRC. The author of the article analyzed in detail the existing problems of local legislation in China using statistical data from think tanks. Even though the People's Republic of China is a unitary state, the legislation in China has a multi-level system with the central government playing the dominant role. This is expressed in the right of state authorities, represented by people's congresses at various levels, to adopt normative legal acts within the framework specified in the Constitution of the PRC and the Law on Lawmaking. Even though the terms of reference of prefecture-level cities with districts are limited to the issues of ensuring the livelihoods of the local population, urban and rural construction, protecting the environment and ecology, there are certain problems and imperfections in their legislative activities. Some of these problems are systematic and require nationwide regulation, while the others are directly related to shortcomings in the activities of local authorities. Since the granting of powers of local legislation in 2015 to prefecture-level cities with districts, sufficient time has passed to assess their quality in terms of the legality, validity and expediency of the adopted regulatory legal acts, protection of the rights and interests of citizens and legal entities, proposed innovations. Within the framework of this position, the author assesses the quality of rule- making activity in prefecture-level cities with districts on the example of a sample of six cities, investigates the causes of existing problems and gives recommendations for their elimination and improvement of the legislative process.