Administrative Law Reform
China lacks comprehensive procedures for making administrative rules and regulations, which leads to inconsistent rulemaking practices among administrative bodies.(238) China also lacks adequate methods for challenging administrative actions, either internally or through the courts. Many administrative bodies have no procedures or personnel in place to hear and decide administrative appeals.(239) The Administrative Litigation Law allows citizens to sue government officials in a court of law for violation of their "legitimate rights and interests."(240) However, the law limits the types of actions that can be challenged, and the courts have defined "legitimate rights and interests" narrowly.(241) With the support of the Asia Foundation and U.S. legal scholars, the China Administrative Law Research Group, a group of Chinese legal scholars and government officials, is drafting a new law on administrative procedure that is to be completed by December 2003. Many Chinese and foreign observers hope that the new law, together with reform of all laws and regulations inconsistent with WTO requirements, will bring about a more uniform system of enforcing trade-related measures through administrative appeals and improved mechanisms for judicial review of administrative actions.
Footnotes
238: This inconsistency is illustrated by the varying policies that ministries have with respect to transparency, as discussed above.
239: Randall Peerenboom, "Globalization, Path Dependency and the Limits of Law: Administrative Law Reform and Rule of Law in the People's Republic of China," Berkeley Journal of International Law 19 (2001): 232.
240: Administrative Litigation Law, art. 2.
241: Peerenboom, 235.
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