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CIRCULAR OF THE STATE COUNCIL ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSIDERATION

    The Law of the People's Republic of China on Administrative Reconsideration (hereinafter referred to as the Administrative Reconsideration Law) has been adopted by the Ninth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress on April 29,1999, and will take effect as of October 1, 1999. This is a significant event in the construction of socialist democracy and legal system in our country. It is an important responsibility of administrative organs at various levels to guarantee the complete and correct implementation of the Administrative Reconsideration Law, and to promote the governments at various levels and the departments thereof to illegally execute administration and strictly govern administration, so as to build an honest, realistic, efficient and diligent government. It is also an important task in the government legal system construction. The local governments at various levels and the departments under the State Council should pay great attention to the implementation of the Administrative Reconsideration Law, and practically do good jobs in the work in relation to its implementation. In order to achieve that, the Circular is given as follows:

    1.Understand the importance of the Administrative Reconsideration Law from the point of basic strategy of governing the country according to law and the point of executing administration in strict accordance with law, and learn and publicize the Administrative Reconsideration Law in a down-to-earth way

    Administrative reconsideration is an important supervisory mechanism for the administrative organs to correct mistakes by themselves. The Administrative Reconsideration Law, on the basis of summing up practical experience from the implementation of Regulations on Administrative Reconsideration formulated by the State Council in 1990, further improves the administrative reconsideration system, which includes: to enlarge the scope of administrative reconsideration, so as to further reinforce the role of administrative reconsideration in solving administrative disputes; to simplify application procedures of administrative reconsideration, so as to fully embody the principle of convenience-for-people; to authorize the party concerned with the right of initiative in relation to the supervision mechanism of regulatory documents; to establish the system that the State Council accepts administrative reconsideration cases involving departments under the State Council and governments at the provincial level and makes final decision, by which to strengthen the State Council's supervision over its departments and governments at the provincial level; and to strictly specify the administrative organs' legal liability for not implementing the function of administrative reconsideration. The Administrative Reconsideration Law, after the promulgation of the Administrative Procedural Law, the State Compensation Law and the Administrative Penalty Law, is another important law for normalizing governmental conducts, it has important significance in not only protecting legal rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations, but also in guaranteeing and supervising administrative organs to perform their function and powers according to law, in promoting the execution of administration according to law and governing the administration in a strict way, in increasing working efficiency, in strengthening the construction of honest government, in maintaining close t
ie between the government and people, and in maintaining social stability. The staff members of administrative organs at various levels, especially the leaders, should, from the point of basic strategy of governing the country according to law and the point of executing administration in strict accordance with law, understand the importance of the implementation of the Administrative Reconsideration Law, earnestly study the Administrative Reconsideration Law, deeply comprehend its spirit and crux, strengthen the consciousness in legally executing administration, and in improving the ability in legally executing administration. Governments at various levels and their departments should lay out concrete measures for studying, publicizing and implementing the Administrative Reconsideration Law, and pay close attention to its fulfillment. It is necessary to take advantage of newspaper, broadcasting, television and other media, by adopting all kinds of vivid and lively forms, to deeply publicize the Administrative Reconsideration Law to the masses, with a purpose of making everybody know it, have an intimate knowledge about the administrative reconsideration system, and use it to protect their legal rights and interests. It is necessary, by combining the implementation of the Administrative Reconsideration Law, to further strengthen the training on the personnel of administrative law-enforcement and the personnel engaging in concert work in relation to administrative reconsideration. The working agencies of legal system under the governments at or above the county level and their departments should, under the uniform leadership of the governments at the same level or their departments, organize the work in relation to studying, publicizing and training in their own localities or departments.

    2.Carry out the work of administrative reconsideration in strict accordance with Administrative Reconsideration of Law

    The Administrative Reconsideration Law clearly specifies the scope, application, acceptance, decision, and legal liability of administrative reconsideration. Governments at or above the county level and their departments should strictly implement these provisions, earnestly perform  their functions and duties in administrative reconsideration. As to the review and disposition of the regulatory documents used as basis in specific administrative acts applied for administrative reconsideration as well as the transference of applications for administrative reconsideration by the governments at the county level, the localities may make specific provisions according to their legal authorization. It is necessary, on the basis of summing up practical experience of administrative reconsideration, to establish and perfect the record system of major administrative reconsideration decisions, pay close attention to the revision of standardized format of administrative reconsideration documents, further perfect the system of statistics of administrative reconsideration and response to reconsideration. As to problems concerning the concrete application of the Administrative Reconsideration Law, the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council should handle these matters according to the provisions of the Decision on Strengthening the Work Concerning the Interpretation of Law adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

    3.Reinforce supervision and inspection over administrative reconsideration activities

    The Administrative Reconsideration Law clearly stipulates the supervision over administrative reconsideration activities, and clearly specifies the legal liability for law-breaking acts of administrative reconsideration organs and their staff members. Governments at or above the county level and their departments should strictly reinforce supervision over administrative reconsideration activities, and take the inspection  over circumstances as priority, such as whether accepting administrative reconsideration case according to law, whether transferring application of administrative reconsideration according to provisions, and whether conducting review and making decisions of administration reconsideration according to law; once the circumstances are found such as not accepting applications for administrative reconsideration that should be accepted, not making decisions that should be made, as well as that officials shelter officials or any other serious neglect of duties, investigation and punishment should be conducted in strict accordance with law, and correction should be firmly made; where legal liability should be investigated, it should be done according to law, first of all, the legal liability of responsible persons should be investigated. The working agencies of legal system under the governments at or above the county level should, according to uniform deployment of the governments at the same level, concretely organization and undertake the work in relation to the supervision and inspection over administrative reconsideration. Where a working agency of legal system finds that the governments at lower level or the departments under the governments at the same level do not accept applications for administrative reconsideration without justified reasons,  do not make administrative reconsideration decisions within legal time limit, do not fulfil the administrative reconsideration decisions, retaliate the applicants or commit any other acts violating th
e Administrative Reconsideration Law, it should offer suggestions of deposition to the government at the same level or to the administrative supervisory department at the corresponding level. The administrative departments received suggestions should dispose it within two months according to the Administrative Reconsideration Law and the relative laws and administrative regulations.

    4.Provide necessary guarantee to the normal carrying out of administrative reconsideration work

    Administrative reconsideration law stipulates: "The organs in charge of administrative reconsideration should not claim any fee from applicants. The cost of administrative reconsideration should be considered as part of administrative cost of the administrative organ, and be provided by finance at the same level." Administrative reconsideration is a kind of self-correcting activity for administrative organs, to correct any mistake is obligation of administrative organs. All the departments concerned should uphold the principle of "serving people by heart", deal with the cases according to law, and claim no fee from the applicants. The cost of administrative reconsideration should be listed in normal administrative cost of the administrative departments. Financial departments should guarantee that. The administrative reconsideration outlay should be listed into a special list, and cannot be appropriated. Administrative reconsideration departments should safeguard that necessary equipment and working condition be provided.

    5.Through implementing administrative reconsideration, strengthen establishing governmental legal system, improve administration according to law

    The 15th Congress of the Party adopted the principle of governing the country according to law as the basic strategy of the Party in leading the people to govern the country, and ordered definitely that "all administrative organs should execute administration according to law". The Second Session of the Ninth National People's Congress passed an amendment to Constitution that "The People's Republic of China governs the country according to law, and making it a socialist country ruled by law." Administration is an organic part of rule by law. Strict administration by law is of vital importance to the realization of rule by law. "Report on Government Work" approved by the Second Session of the Ninth National People's Congress put forward that the government should strengthen legalization of administration, enforce legal supervision, advance legal administration; and one of the three important things for implementing basic strategy of rule by law is expressly defined as "administering strictly, constructing an honest, diligent efficient and realistic government". New circumstances require new tasks for legal work of the government. Governments at various levels and their organs should understand the significance of legal construction in the new period, put reinforcing legal construction in an important position, and list it in agenda. At present, through implementing administrative reconsideration law, the government should advance legalization, execution of law and supervision over it greatly.

    Administrative reconsideration is a kind of work, which has a strong legal character, specialize to great degree, covers vast fields. An administrative organ, which has an intimate knowledge of law and is relatively detached, is needed to deal with administrative reconsideration. Administrative reconsideration law stipulates: " The administrative organs discharging administrative reconsideration duty are administrative reconsideration organs. The institutions of these organs are responsible for dealing with cases concerning administrative reconsideration. Their duties are as follows;(1) Accept application for administrative reconsideration;     (2) Investigate related organizations and people, acquire necessary evidence, and consult documents and materials; (3) Examine specific administrative conduct concerning the application for administrative reconsideration, draw up decision on administrative reconsideration; (4) Deal with the application regulated by Article 7 of this Law, or forward it; (5) Made relevant suggestion towards administrative organs, which violate this Law; (6) Deal with the suits, which are caused by disagreeing with decision on administrative reconsideration; (7) Other duties prescribed by laws and regulations. According to these regulations, the working agencies of legal system in administrative organs should take important responsibility in administrative reconsideration. The implementation of administrative reconsideration and image of administrative organs hinge on completely and correctly implementing duties prescribed by administrative reconsideration law. Holding the principle of being highly responsible for people, the working agencies of legal system should take facts as basis, laws as criteria, and strictly discharge legal duties. Governments at or above the county level and their departments should follow the principles made by the State Council in strengthening the work of legal system in governmental structure reform, reinforce
legal construction, establish a politics-sensitive, good style of working, and professional legal team. The setting of the working agencies of legal system and personnel should be adapted to legal work of local government (including administrative reconsideration work). Necessary conditions should be created for the working agencies of legal system to launch their work, so that their function of aiding administrative leaders could be completely fulfilled.  

    After receiving this Circular, all localities and departments should seriously study and implement it according to actual circumstances. The relevant major circumstances and problems arising from the implementation of the Administrative Reconsideration Law should be promptly reported to the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council.