The newly revised Charity Law will come into force on September 5 this year, and the reporter will take you to see the process and main highlights of the amendment -
The positive energy of philanthropy also needs to be escorted by the rule of law
September 1, 2016
The Charity Law of the People's Republic of China came into force.
December 2022
The revised draft of the Charity Law was submitted to the 38th Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress for deliberation for the first time.
October 2023
The Sixth Session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress deliberated on the draft amendment to the Charity Law, and solicited public opinions after the meeting, and all parties generally agreed to change the form of the amendment to the amendment.
December 2023
The seventh meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress deliberated on the draft decision on the revision of the Charity Law, which was unanimously adopted on December 29.
Philanthropy is an important part of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and is of great significance to promoting social fairness and justice and promoting the realization of common prosperity. Since its promulgation and implementation in 2016, the current Charity Law has played an important role in protecting the rights and interests of charitable participants, regulating charitable activities, promoting the development of philanthropy, and giving full play to the role of charity. At the same time, some new situations and new problems have also emerged in the field of charity, which have put forward new requirements for strengthening the construction of the rule of law in charity.
On December 29, 2023, the seventh meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress voted to adopt the decision on amending the Charity Law, which will come into force on September 5, 2024. What is the significance of this revision of the Charity Law, what are the bright spots, and what work needs to be done to ensure the implementation of the law? This reporter sorted out and took stock of this.
1
Give play to the role of law in regulating, guiding, and guaranteeing
Promote the development of philanthropy under the rule of law
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that it is necessary to guide and support enterprises, social organizations and individuals who are willing and able to actively participate in public welfare and charity. A series of important expositions by General Secretary Xi Jinping and the important decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee have pointed out the direction and provided guidance for doing a good job in charity work and developing philanthropy in the new era.
"The revision of the Charity Law is to integrate General Secretary Xi Jinping's important exposition on the development of philanthropy and the role of charity and the spiritual essence of the Party Central Committee's decision-making and deployment into the law revision work, reflect it in the essence of the law, give play to the role of the law in regulating, guiding and guaranteeing, and promote the high-quality development of philanthropy in the new era. Shi Hong, director of the Social Law Office of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said in an interview.
China's philanthropy is rooted in the excellent traditional Chinese culture, based on the basic national conditions of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and has embarked on a path of development with Chinese characteristics. Shi Hong said that the revision of the Charity Law is to inherit and carry forward the spiritual connotation of the excellent traditional charity culture, summarize and absorb the practical experience and lessons of philanthropy with Chinese characteristics, and integrate the existing philanthropic concepts, philanthropic behaviors, philanthropic systems, philanthropic models, and philanthropic concepts with Chinese characteristics. The philanthropic experience has been elevated to the top-level institutional design of national philanthropy, focusing on solving the practical problems of the development of philanthropy in the new era of reform, opening up and socialist modernization, exploring the development path and system design of philanthropy that meet the requirements of China's reality and the times, and promoting the development of socialist philanthropy with Chinese characteristics under the rule of law.
2
Strengthen leadership and supervision
Improve the level of modernization of charitable governance
To develop philanthropy with Chinese characteristics, it is necessary to give full play to the party's role as the core of leadership in controlling the overall situation and coordinating all parties, continuously improve the charity supervision system and mechanism, encourage and support, coordinate and promote, manage in accordance with the law, and promote the standardized and efficient development of philanthropy. Shi Hong introduced that the revision of the Charity Law has made corresponding provisions on strengthening the party's leadership and improving supervision and management.
The Charity Law adds a new provision that people's governments at or above the county level shall co-ordinate, coordinate, supervise, and guide relevant departments to do a good job of supporting, developing, and standardizing the management of charitable undertakings within the scope of their respective duties, and that relevant departments should strengthen supervision, management, and services of charitable activities. This provision strengthens the responsibilities of governments at all levels in overall planning and coordination, and is conducive to further promoting the development of philanthropy in various localities.
At the same time, the newly revised Charity Law has increased the punishment for illegal acts, and strengthened the legal liability of charitable organizations, trustees of charitable trusts and other participants in charitable activities.
Where charitable organizations have illegal conduct such as privately dividing, misappropriating, withholding, or misappropriating charitable assets, the newly revised Charity Law is to increase the extent of punishment for the relevant responsible personnel, adding professional restrictions on the basis of "imposing a fine of between 20,000 and 200,000 RMB, and confiscating unlawful gains", and clarifying that where the circumstances are serious, the directly responsible managers and other directly responsible personnel are prohibited from serving as managers of the charitable organization for one to five years.
During the group deliberation on the draft amendment to the Charity Law, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress said that the new provisions on the prohibition of professional practice have improved the accountability system, and at the same time suggested that the punishment of the directly responsible personnel should be further increased.
3
Establish and improve personal help
Regulatory system for online service platforms
With the development of network information technology, in recent years, the phenomenon of personal online help has been increasing, and related network service platforms have shown large-scale development. These platforms have played an active role in helping patients with serious illnesses to raise medical expenses, but there are also some chaos in the process of practice, which has a negative impact on the credibility of the entire industry and even the development of philanthropy.
One of the highlights of the newly revised Charity Law is to further establish and improve the regulatory system for online service platforms for individuals seeking help.
The law stipulates that if an individual has financial difficulties in his or her family due to illness or other reasons, and publishes information seeking help to the public, the person seeking help and the person who publishes the information shall be responsible for the authenticity of the information, and shall not obtain assistance by fraud by fabricating or concealing facts. Platforms engaged in online services for individuals seeking assistance shall be designated by the civil affairs department of the State Council to conduct a review of the veracity of the information on requests for assistance released through them, and the specific management measures are to be separately drafted by the civil affairs department of the State Council in conjunction with departments such as for internet information, industry, and information technology.
During the group's deliberation on the draft amendment to the Charity Law, Li Jiheng, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said that the draft stipulates that "platforms engaged in online services for individuals seeking help online services shall be designated by the civil affairs department of the State Council", and establishes a system of ex-ante supervision, which is conducive to improving the quality of the platform, providing reliable channels for help-seekers and donors, and better safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of rescuers.
In response to this provision, Huang Junhua, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, also expressed his affirmation. But at the same time, Huang Junhua also believes that there may be certain difficulties in actual operation, so he hopes to formulate specific management measures as soon as possible, "such as how to inspect and to what extent in the inspection process of the online platform, only when these are sorted out, will it be operable." ”
4
Promote the effective implementation of the law
Promote philanthropy
"The law is not enough on its own", on the road of promoting the development of charity in accordance with the law, amending the Charity Law is only the first step, whether or not the development of charity can be further developed through the amendment of the law, it depends on all parties to make great efforts to publicize, implement, and implement.
The Charity Law is a basic and comprehensive law in the field of charity, which comprehensively regulates charitable activities. Shi Hong said that the amendment to the Charity Law involves a number of articles and systems, and the relevant departments should take the lead in studying the revised Charity Law, organize the interpretation and interpretation, and make the broad masses of the people consciously respect the law, learn the law, abide by the law, and use the law through in-depth legal popularization and publicity, and form a strong atmosphere of learning and using the Charity Law well in the whole society, and promote everyone to actively participate in charity.
Daniel Zhang, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, also mentioned the need to intensify the publicity and implementation of the law when deliberating the draft amendment to the Charity Law in groups. He said that during the investigation and solicitation of opinions on the revision of the Charity Law, it was found that some problems restricting the development of charity were not caused by the lack of provisions in the law or imperfect provisions, but were caused by the lack of publicity and implementation after the introduction of the Charity Law, the imperfection of relevant supporting provisions, and the non-uniform and non-standard practice and law enforcement. Therefore, he suggested that the relevant departments should intensify publicity and implementation and speed up the formulation of supporting policies and measures. "It is necessary to make it clear to the vast number of participants in charitable activities, and let the relevant regulatory departments know how to use and use the law, so that the revision decision can be implemented and truly effective. ”
How can we strengthen the implementation of the revised Charity Law and turn the "law on paper" into a "law in action"? Shi Hong said that it is necessary to ensure the correct implementation of the Charity Law by promoting strict law enforcement, judicial fairness, and law-abiding by the whole people. All levels of people's government, relevant departments, charitable organizations, and other participants in charitable activities should increase their ideological understanding, fully and accurately grasp the main content of the law, truly implement the relevant provisions of the Charity Law, and ensure that the Charity Law can be implemented and effective.
Shi Hong believes that the full and effective implementation of the decision to revise the Charity Law still needs to be refined and concretized by supporting laws and regulations. For example, the revised decision lowers the requirements for charitable organizations to apply for public fundraising qualifications, and puts forward new requirements for charitable organizations' fundraising costs and information disclosure, and the relevant departments need to revise the relevant laws and regulations based on the content of the amendments to ensure that they are consistent with the provisions of the Charity Law; Departments such as for industry and information technology are to draft specific management measures for online service platforms for personal help, and so forth, and the relevant departments need to accelerate the formulation of supporting provisions on the basis of authorization. Relevant parties should make early preparations, strengthen research, argumentation, assessment, and other work, and promote a more cohesive, coordinated, and complete legal system.
In terms of the implementation of the law, Peng Qinghua, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, put forward two suggestions: First, earnestly strengthen the credibility of charitable organizations. He said credibility is the lifeblood of charitable organizations. There are already more than 13,000 registered and designated charitable organizations on the mainland, and in accordance with the provisions of the Charity Law and relevant systems, and with comprehensive, truthful, and accurate disclosure of information as a breakthrough point, improve the internal governance, industry self-discipline, administrative oversight, and social oversight of charitable organizations, and link them with the establishment of the social credit system, and implement joint incentives for trustworthiness and joint disciplinary action for untrustworthiness. Second, accelerate the development of charitable trusts. Peng Qinghua said that charitable trusts are an important part of charitable activities, and it is recommended to conduct in-depth research and systematically improve the provisions of the charitable trust system, give charitable trusts the same incentive arrangements as charitable donations, facilitate the establishment of charitable trusts, give full play to the advantages of "charity + finance", balance social value and commercial value, and promote charitable trusts to play a greater role in the third distribution.
Zheng Jianbang, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, suggested exploring the mode of public interest litigation in the field of charity when deliberating the draft amendment to the Charity Law. He said that the Charity Law stipulates relative principles for the rights of donors, and the relevant provisions for the protection of rights are insufficient, and online donations are more common in the Internet era, and the number of online donors is large, and the amount of individual donations is small, and it is even more difficult for such entities to protect their rights when charitable organizations violate donation agreements. He suggested exploring public interest litigation models in the field of charity, and supporting procuratorial organs to urge relevant entities to perform their duties and responsibilities in accordance with the law through public interest litigation.
(Source: Procuratorate Daily, Voice Weekly Reporter: Bai Ou)