Top legislator calls for more efforts for autonomy by villagers
( 2001-05-31 23:40 ) (8 )

China's top legislator Li Peng Thursday called on legislatures at all levels to ensure villager autonomy, describing it as important part of administering the country through the rule of law.

Li Peng made a speech to a group of legislators with the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), who are scheduled to inspect the implementation of the organic law on villager committees in several provincial areas.

Li said villager autonomy is a practice of socialist democracy, and it has been the consistent position of the Communist Party of China to ensure that villagers exercise their legitimate rights as masters of the country.

The law, which became officially effective as of November 1998 after a decade of trial implementation, is of great significance to safeguard villager autonomy and socialist democracy in rural China, he said.

The planned inspection aims to promote the healthy development of villager autonomy, he said.

The legislators are scheduled to make an inspection tour of Jilin province in northeast China, Shandong and Fujian provinces in east China, Hainan province in south China and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China.