Legislators plan to revise the Budget Law this August to give taxpayers more information about how their money is spent.

The draft amendment to the Budget Law will make it clear that all income and expenditures of governments must be included in the budget, Gao Qiang, director of the budgetary affairs commission of the NPC Standing Committee, said at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing NPC session.

He said the draft law would also include stronger stipulations to urge government departments to make their budgets public.

Gao said the top legislature, the NPC Standing Committee, plans to have the first review on this draft law in late August. The draft law will also be made public to solicit people's suggestions after the first review, he said.

According to the Legislation Law, a draft law usually receives three readings before being adopted.

The existing Budget Law, adopted in 1994, is general in many terms and not well implemented, especially by some local governments. A large number of funds are not included in budgets, which has created a new Chinese phrase - "extra-budget income and spending".

Gao said such practice is intolerable and stressed the importance of the law's implementation.

He also said the draft amendment will include clear stipulations on punishments. "A law is incomplete and to some extent useless if there's no accountability."

Gao also called for a more detailed budget, especially on government expenditures on lavish banquets, overseas sightseeing and luxury vehicle purchases, which have received wide public attention in recent years.

More citizens are demanding that governments make public budgets in the three sectors. But Gao said that even if a government releases the complete version of its budget, the public still cannot get what they want because the existing budget laws do not require governments to list such detailed information.

"For example, in the budget report, you can only see the catalog of government purchase expenditure. But the money could be used for vehicles, or for office desks, computers and papers. You cannot tell the exact amount for each item," he said.

Gao said one of the key tasks for future budget work is to make the budgets more detailed and make them public to let the people know where their money goes.

Reform of laojiao system

Li Fei, deputy director of the NPC Standing Committee's legislative affairs commission, said on Wednesday that legislators are considering reforms to the re-education-through-labor system, or laojiao, by proposing a new law that is more protective of the legal rights of minor offenders.

Li said drafting the law on education and correction of illegal acts has been listed on the NPC's legislative agenda this year, and has been included in the country's overall judicial reform.

He said legislators will quicken their pace to draft the law, without giving details.

Laojiao, an administrative measure adopted in 1957, empowers the police - instead of the courts - to sentence a person guilty of such minor offenses as petty theft and prostitution, to a maximum of four years' incarceration. During that jail time, they receive education and also must do labor work.

The practice has received widespread criticism in recent years as many experts said it contradicts several items in the Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Law, which require that decisions to jail someone go through the judicial system first.

(China Daily March 11, 2010)