Top legislature to weigh proposal to amend 7 laws

China's top legislature moved Oct 23 to weigh a draft proposal to collectively amend seven laws, including the Prison Law, in a bid to coordinate clauses in the seven laws to fit the newly revised Criminal Procedure Law.

Li Shishi, director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, said the draft proposal will target only the coordination of the seven laws with the amended criminal procedure code, which was passed in March and will be put into effect next January.

Li said the proposal is minor. Although there are clauses in the seven laws that are outdated, Li said those clauses will not be addressed in the proposal.

For instance, he said, the Amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law has shortened the sentence of inmates being held in detention houses to less than three months, much shorter than standing clauses in the Prison Law, which allows detention houses to hold criminals serving sentences of less than a year.

The Criminal Procedure Law has also revised stipulations regarding lawyers' rights and the protection of juveniles during investigations and court trials.

The law requires that trials of cases in which the offenders are under 18 to be closed to the public. And if the offender is under 18 at the time of the crime and sentenced to less than five years' imprisonment, the records of the crime should be sealed and not be disclosed to any institution or individual unless permitted by law.

By July 2011, a total of 2,331 juvenile courts had been set up across the country, according to a white paper released by the State Council Information Office on Oct 9.