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The ninth session of the Standing Committee of the 11th NPC opens in Beijing, China, June 22, 2009. (Photo by Wang Xinqing) |
The revision to the Law on Statistics, which is intended to prevent the falsification of official data, was submitted Monday for a second reading by Chinese lawmakers.
The draft revision was tabled at the ninth session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature, which opened its latest six-day, bi-monthly session Monday.
The revision was deliberated for the first time at a legislative meeting in December. The revised law aims to impose severe penalties on officials who "intervene in government statistical work and manipulate or fabricate data."
In the second version, the draft adds a stipulation that "governments and supervisory organs above the county level should oversee statistical agencies' implementation of the law."
The draft also clarifies that "the law is only applicable to statistical activities organized by governments and relevant departments."
The law was enacted in 1983.
A regulation to punish officials who forge or cover up data in statistical work was also published in April by several governmentdepartments including the Ministry of Supervision and the NationalBureau of Statistics.
Serious penalties including dismissal, demotion or unspecified "criminal punishment" would be imposed on people who unlawfully change statistics or ask others to do so and those who take revenge on people who refuse to fabricate data or blow the whistleon illegal acts, according to the regulation.