After almost a year, the National People's Congress has begun its second trial of "Laws on Reaction to Breaking Events".

Last year, the Standing Committee of the NPC was in the midst of its first round of deliberations on the law, which in article 57 said: "News media that violates regulation and reports on sudden or developing events in a false manner will be fined by the appropriate local governing body People's Government for no less than 50,000 and no more than 100,000 yuan."

After being announced by Xinhua, the news met with strong reaction. Nanfang Daily published a piece entitled, "Limiting the Media Reports on Breaking News is a Step Backwards" that said, "this law's rules amount to an abolishment of public supervision, it's undoubtedly a step backward, and is incomprehensible to many. First Financial Daily wrote an editorial pointing out that although the law may help government bodies coordinate their responses to breaking events, it is detrimental to the news media's ability to serve as a constructive role, and thus bad for the public overall. In the days that followed, the tide of criticism continued to swell.

The government responded swiftly. Nine days after the announcement, the State Council's press office held a press conference. Wang Yongqing, deputy-director of the State Council's Legal Office and a drafter of the law, explained that the two provisions in the law dealing with news disclosure had recently created a great amount of controversy, and that it was therefore necessary for some public communication and explanation. According to our understanding, it was the first time such a press conference has ever been held.

During the conference, Article 57 became the focus of domestic and foreign journalists' questioning. Wang Yongqing patiently explained: This kind of regulation was not a limiting factor, but something to influence journalists positively and ensure that they are reporting with precision and authority. The main objective of this law, he said, was to standardize and restrict governmental action, and was drafted with this in mind all along. "I frankly told everyone, [standardizing and limiting government behavior] in this law is a major step for Chinese democracy and strengthening of the legal system."

But the voices of doubt didn't stop there. Scholars pointed out that press rights stem from people's freedom of speech, a constitutional right. Any time this is under threat of limitation it must be dealth with the utmost caution. The law says that "going against regulation" will meet "punishment", but who's making up the "regulation"? This ambiguity could give those seeking to restrict free speech an opportunity,, and in the end, the public's right to know suffers.

What followed next made people even more mistrusting and suspicious: experts involved in the drafting said they were not aware of the article, one even saying, "I have no idea how this slipped in."

Scholars of law and journalism published a stream of articles expressing their anxiety over the issue. Jiang Ping, noted legal scholar, spoke bluntly: "Freedom of the press comes from the Constitution., and is the basic right behind the freedom to publish. It's something China has not done enough of all along, and is limiting too much. [This law] contains highly inappropriate rules that will merely create a government with too much power."

When the curtain closed on the press conference, Kan Ke, spokesperson for the Standing Committee of the NPC's General News Office, pointed out to journalists that the Standing Committee had noticed the controversy resulting from the first announcement and had subsequently turned its attention to it, and added that every law undergoes a deliberation process. According to China's Legislative Law, laws must usually pass three rounds of deliberation. After this meeting of the Standing Committee, the law will still be revised according to democratic and scientific legislative principles, before being submitted to the next Committee.

In soliciting opinion from interested parties, including those from the China Law Society, the Supreme Court of the People's Republic of China and other government units all believe that the key to dissemination in and transparency of breaking news is the media's comprehensive affirmation of its positive role. Beyond this, the law's ambiguity over "violation of regulation" perhaps would become an excuse for local government to limit the normal reporting by media on breaking news, and will be disadvantageous for media reporting on cover-ups in order to initiate public review. Article 57, says some departments, should be "revised and perfected," but the majority of legal experts point out that from a Constitutional perspective, it is unfixable and must be removed entirely.

In the wake of the law's revision, public debate leveled off. But the media has been intimately following its maturity.

Thus, on June 24, 2007,when Xinhua News Agency announced that, "In the second draft of the "Response to Breaking Events Law", the line saying that "the media cannot publish news regarding breaking event without authorization or against regulation" had been removed, other media sources reprinted the story immediately, followed by commentary. Also omitted was the stipulation that local government could implement controls on news media making such reports. Although other controversial sections remained, public opinion still held that this was a big step for Chinese society, and that the government and legislative bodies should be praised for their rationality.

There is no doubt that the act shows the supreme importance that the involved governmental organs attach to public feedback and civil rights, also that democratic and scientific legislation will have an even more positive role in the future. To this end we are optimistic.

However, in order to have public supervision reach every facet of society, there is still a long way ahead. Essentially speaking, public supervision is a service established by democratic politics, and the strengthening of public supervision is part of the process of active participation by them in national affairs and the management of public services. Establishing a modern civil society first requires the protection of public authority, especially as the government is exercising its own. Aside from this, in the end, democratic politics must be established, exactly as Hu Jintao, at the Central Standing Committee's Advanced Training for Provincial Cadres, said: "We must work hard to satisfy the Chinese people's constantly increasing, positive political participation."

With this backdrop, the EO interviews Cai Dingjian, professor at the China University of Political Science and Law and director of the Constitutionalism Institute there. From 1986 until the end of 2003, he worked in the research division's secretariat in the NPC's Standing Committee, eventually becoming the deputy director. In January of 2004, be was appointed to his professorship, where he mainly deals with constitutional law, the establishment of China's legal system, the NPC, parliamentarianism, elections, and the relationship between media and government.

The legislature respects the will of the people

The Economic Observer: During the second deliberation of the Response to Breaking Events Law,  the section saying that news media must not violate regulation when reporting on breaking events was removed. As a constitutional scholar, how do you interpret this?

Cai Dingjian: This is an extremely positive development, it proves that legislative bodies and the government respect public feedback and opinion, and have responded positively to it. It also illustrates that public opinion and the media are taking on a greater role.

When some sudden, newsworthy event happens, is it better for information to be locked up, or for it to be fully disclosed to the public? During SARS it became obvious that without full publicity, rumors spread that lead to panic. Of course, if news media publishes false information it can lead to social disorder, but in weighing the pros and cons, publicity is the best way to deal with breaking events. During urgent situations, if everyone isn't notified, everyone makes wild assumptions that damage the authority of the government, and this is even worse for the management of the crisis.

Evidence shows that these past few years, legal organs have increasingly respected popular will and positively responded to the voice of society. For example, the Employment Stimulus Law, which is being deliberated on by the Standing Committee of the NPC right now, had received over 10,000 responses to the online solicitation for suggestions. Among them, the greatest amount focused on the law's absence on issues of bias in the workplace, and since then, the law has expanded to include a special section devoted to those issues.

Now, China's advancing society has reached a new turning point, where public interest and suggestions are more and more independent and diverse. Public awareness and participation is strengthening. Societal conflict is gradually becoming more complex and prominent. Is it better to keep society in the dark in order to preserve stability, or to have them understand more? Of course the latter is better. At the same time, the government's positive response to public feedback is an extremely wise way of going about things.

EO: [The law's] related sections are actually a question of how the government should deal with the media at this turning point.

Cai: Yes. Without media strength, you can't smoothly transform society. The more social conflict and transformation, the more need there is for an authoritative and trustworthy media. Only this can benefit social stability. We can think back to previous times when there were turning points or some large problems—why did rumors fly? Because during these times the public needs information the most, and true news was not made publicly available. If we continue to use the old methods of controlling the media, and everywhere we leave intact the grapevines and gossip, it will engender even more destabilizing elements. We should be able to see media's positive function. Many examples prove that the media has been positive for stabilizing society these past few years. It's like before SARS, there were rumors and the government was taking action, but because of the secrecy, the public panicked. After information was made public it, on the contrary, people were relieved.

Another example is South Korea.. After the financial windstorm broke, because Korea had implemented a democratic system, and the whole of society was very public, public knowledge of the government's difficulty led to solidarity with families donating money and heirlooms to ease the government's financial burdens. Here, the dissemination of news is a positive force, and it results in people having more trust in government.

EO: The law was drafted with SARS as a backdrop, so why is there always this kind of force that takes the nation's interest, and public interest, as an excuse to inhibit the media's involvement in breaking events to the extent that rules like that are included.?

Cai: This goes against what we learned from SARS. One nation, one society, of course will have national and public interests, but some local officials, what they call national and public interest, are all subjective, and not authentic. Society's stability primarily requires the government's compliance with the aspirations of constituents. But some local officials—like those who [appropriate land and] tear down houses—oftentimes use national and public interest to restrict freedom of speech. This is a kind of excuse.

EO: To the point where it actually stems from personal interest.

Cai: This touches upon press freedom and its relationship with government secrecy. Our laws dealing with secrecy are excessively broad, and it takes things that aren't secretive, even things that must be known by the public, and shrouds them in secrecy… For example, when the NPC submits its working budget, it treats it as state secrets. Is this not absurd? Is budget information really a state secret? People have the right to know the government's budget…it's a fundamental, constitutional right granted by modern government.

EO: Actually, precisely because it's not public, because there is no public financial oversight, the phenomenon of "gray income" and corruption continue despite the repeated attention they've drawn.

Cai: Through these examples you can see, in the past what we called national interest, secrecy, national security, a lot of them were produced in the era of class struggle. We must right these concepts, and systematically clean up our secrecy, figure out once and for all what actually should be kept secret. The power of citizens over news, their basic constitutional rights, the power to know, should be greatly expanded. If information is kept secret it will inevitably lead to a "black box" mode of operation, the result of which is the abuse of power, waste, corruption, violation of law, and injury to the nation. Many issues must be re-considered and clarified from a systemic point of view, and many concepts freshly evaluated

Continued next week: The media is the driving force behind China's societal transformation.

[Original Chinese version]