Chinese legislative experts have called for a law on human
rights and the conception of human rights protection to be referred
to when making?laws.
The clause, "the state respects and safeguards human rights" was
put into the Constitution during the Second Session of the 10th
National People's Congress.
Speaking at a forum on human rights development, which was held
by the China Foundation for Human Rights Development (CFHRD) on
Friday, Feng Jiancang, director of a human rights research center
under the Ministry of Justice said China should enact the Law on
Human Rights as soon as possible and formulate a pyramid-structured
legal system to comprehensively protect human rights.
"The pyramid-structured legal system for human rights protection
should be organized with the Constitution at the top, the Law on
Human Rights at the upper middle and other laws, such as Law on
Women Interests Protection, Law on Teenagers Protection and Law on
the Disabled, at the lower middle and all regulations on citizen's
rights protection at the bottom," Feng elaborated.
Liu Nan, research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, said some content in the current laws, which offended the
spirit of human rights protection, should be revised. For instance,
the current Criminal Law and the Administrative Procedural Law have
some loopholes for human rights protection.
Liu continued that the awareness of human rights protection
should also be realized in the legislative proceedings in future.
For instance, ordinary citizens should be allowed to attend the
discussion during the process of law enacting.
(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2004)