Legal and institutional changes • The regulations on the procedures for the handling of administrative cases were published in August 2003 by the ministry of public security to control the use of coercive measures by police officers. The regulations responded to concern that police officers used unlawful detentions to exact fines or used force to obtain confessions from innocent people. • The central disciplinary committee in January 2004 issued ‘Document No. 1’, which called for reform of the much-abused system of confiscating land for building purposes, with the aim of strengthening the rights and interests of peasants (see below). • In February 2004 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacted new regulations on party supervision and disciplinary policy. These had yet to be fully implemented at the time of writing. The new regulations emphasise the independence and supervisory powers of the Disciplinary Inspection Committee (DIC), which is responsible to the central committee of the CCP, and introduce monitoring mechanisms for provincial-level officials and central government ministries. • A Guideline to Build Law-Based Government was introduced by the central government in April 2004 and addresses the separation of government functions from the management of state-owned enterprises, and the separation of powers and functions between levels of government and government departments. It also calls for a system to monitor government officials. • The CCP in April 2004 implemented temporary regulations on the resignation of officials in an attempt to call senior party leaders and civil servants to account for their actions. The regulations stipulate circumstances under which resignation is mandatory, including for certain specified severe mistakes, severe misconduct or serious under-performance, even though such misdeeds may not be criminal offences. • A real estate register has been drawn up in Beijing for the first time. Published in May 2004, the regulations provide for a complete map of land ownership in the capital, which is made available for public scrutiny at the national land and building bureau. Visitors are allowed to copy the register. Previously, information on real estate ownership was kept secret. • The Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the ministries of construction, communications and water resources decided in May 2004 to introduce a blacklisting system to combat corruption in the construction sector in five pilot areas (see below). • The municipalities of Guangzhou and Shanghai are implementing plans to widen public access to information in 15 government departments. Guangzhou passed the necessary legislation in 2003, followed by Shanghai in May 2004. In Shanghai, all information related to economic management and social public services, except that kept confidential by law, will be made totally or partially available to the public. Among the departments concerned are education, personnel, real estate, water supply, quality inspection, programming, commercial business, police, foreign business and trade, sanitation, labour protection, finance and city administration. Government branches have to compile and publicise guidelines for opening up access to government information, and provide the names and telephone numbers of those responsible for providing information to the public. The Shanghai government has launched a training programme to help ensure effective implementation of the scheme.
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