The Seventh Session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress voted to pass the Decision on Amending the Charity Law.
Escorting the Healthy Development of Philanthropy (Adhering to and Improving the People's Congress System)
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 are the highlights of the revision of this law, and how to help promote the high-quality development of philanthropy?
It takes into account the promotion of development and the strengthening of supervision
"The revision of the Charity Law is to better meet the objective needs of the development of charity in the mainland and to create a good social atmosphere for charity. Shi Hong, director of the Social Law Office of the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said.
Stipulating the government's responsibilities for overall planning, coordination, supervision, and guidance is a major highlight of the revision of the Charity Law.
For a long time, the civil affairs department has done a lot of work to promote the development of philanthropy, but because the implementation of the Charity Law covers a wide range of areas, it still needs to be coordinated as a whole. "For example, in terms of promoting the implementation of policies such as tax incentives, we cannot rely on the civil affairs department alone, but need the concerted efforts of multiple departments. He Guoke, a lawyer at Beijing Zhicheng Law Firm, said.
In this regard, Article 6 of the Law is amended to read that people's governments at or above the county level shall plan, coordinate, supervise, and guide relevant departments to do a good job of supporting the development and standardized management of charitable undertakings within the scope of their respective duties.
The law also stipulates that the government has the responsibility to support the development of philanthropy. Zheng Gongcheng, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and president of the Chinese Social Security Association, introduced that including inclusion in the national economic and social development plan, giving preferential tax treatment, providing financial support (purchasing services), implementing charitable honors and awards, and building a charity information platform, improving credit records and other related services, which are important conditions for the greater development of charity in the mainland.
On the one hand, it is to promote development, and on the other hand, it is to strengthen supervision. The amendments make stricter provisions on the cooperation in public fundraising.
Previously, the Charity Law provided that organizations or individuals that do not have public fundraising credentials may, based on charitable purposes, cooperate with charitable organizations with public fundraising credentials, and the charitable organization will carry out public fundraising. In practice, some organizations with public fundraising qualifications cooperate with relevant institutions to raise funds for the purpose of facilitating fundraising in specific places, but some pursue illegal interests, coupled with the lack of supervision of them, resulting in some chaos.
Last year, a charitable foundation was caught in a "matching donation" scam storm. Ke, a volunteer of the foundation, was accused of taking tens of millions of yuan from a fundraising project. Afterwards, the foundation responded that it had cooperated with a local organization to set up a rescue station, and Ke was not a staff member of the foundation, but had served as a volunteer in the cooperative organization.
The amendment further clarifies that partners are not allowed to carry out public fundraising on their own in any form. Charitable organizations with public fundraising credentials shall conduct an assessment of their partners, sign a written agreement in accordance with law, indicate relevant information on the partners in the fundraising plan, and conduct guidance and oversight of the partners' relevant conduct.
The law also further regulates the cost of fundraising for charitable organizations. Previously, the Charity Law only provided for administrative expenses, but did not regulate the cost of fundraising. This made some organizations take advantage of the loopholes, and some netizens once reported that "spending 100,000 yuan to hold a fundraising party and finally raising 10,000 yuan".
"It is now essential that the law imposes a 'most necessary principle' on the management fees and fundraising costs of charitable organizations. This revision will help remind charitable organizations to accurately design projects, standardize fundraising, use funds prudently, reduce fundraising costs, and improve social benefits. Zhang Xiaoqing, deputy secretary-general of the China Charity Federation, said.
Respond to hot issues in the field of philanthropy
In a major public health incident, the Red Cross Society in a certain place was exposed to the untimely and unreasonable distribution of relief materials, which affected the work and safety of front-line personnel, and was even suspected of privately withholding relief materials. For a time, "emergency charity" attracted wide attention.
"In the past, in many major disasters or major public health events, donations from all walks of life have shown a blowout trend, but the charity field is sometimes in a dilemma where it is difficult to effectively connect due to the lack of emergency response mechanisms. Zheng Gongcheng said.
The revision of the Charity Law summarizes the lessons and lessons learned from charitable activities in response to major emergencies in recent years, absorbs good practices in local legislation, coordinates with existing relevant laws and regulations, and systematically makes corresponding institutional arrangements to respond to social expectations.
"It is foreseeable that with the implementation of the law, in the event of a major disaster or major public health event in the future, the actions of the charity sector will be more efficient under the conditions of orderly coordination. For example, the law clearly requires the local government to provide demand information, which can effectively avoid donations of materials that do not meet the needs of the disaster area, thereby improving the effectiveness of charity. Zheng Gongcheng said.
Not long ago, a girl was bitten by a dog in a certain place, which aroused the attention and sympathy of netizens. Two days after the incident, the girl's family launched a fundraising campaign on a fundraising platform for the girl's treatment. In just a few hours, the caring people completed the donation of 2 million yuan.
However, it didn't take long for questions to begin to appear on the Internet about the high amount of money raised and whether it was necessary for the girl's family to have a house and a car. Finally, as the injured girl's condition stabilized, the fundraising platform negotiated with the promoter to return all unused funds to the original source.
"With the development of network information technology, the phenomenon of personal online help is increasing. This has played a positive role in helping patients with serious illnesses to raise medical expenses, but there are also some chaos that have a negative impact on the credibility of the entire industry. Shi Hong said.
According to reports, in the past, the channels for seeking help for personal serious illnesses opened by various online platforms were not considered charitable activities in law, but were only regulated by the Civil Code, Criminal Law and relevant laws and regulations, and lacked special guidance and supervision.
Zang Tiewei, spokesman for the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and director of the Research Office, said that the current revision of the Charity Law takes into account the opinions of all parties, and makes provisions in the supplementary provisions on the conduct of individuals seeking help and the online service platforms for personal help.
Work together to promote the better implementation of the law
Not long ago, after accepting a charitable donation from a certain unit, a foundation violated the relevant provisions of the Charity Law by accruing management expenses without stipulating in the donation agreement. As a result, the civil affairs department issued an administrative penalty of a warning to the foundation in accordance with the law.
In recent years, civil affairs and other relevant departments have increased the force of handling illegal acts in the field of charity. However, the scope and severity of punishment, especially the punishment of relevant personnel, need to be further clearly defined. "The current revision of the Charity Law increases the punishment of illegal acts, and strengthens the legal liability of charitable organizations, trustees of charitable trusts and other participants in charitable activities. Shi Hong said.
In addition to the punishment of charitable organizations, the law also increases the punishment of relevant responsible persons.
Tu Yunxin, an assistant researcher at Fudan University's Human Rights Research Center, believes that the newly revised Charity Law has increased professional restrictions and improved the accountability system, which is conducive to the practitioners of charitable organizations to better restrain their own behavior and promote the formation of a self-discipline consensus within the charity industry.
To better implement the law, all parties need to work together.
"The full and effective implementation of the decision to revise the Charity Law requires the refinement and concretization of supporting laws and regulations. For example, Shi Hong said that 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 relevant departments need to revise relevant laws and regulations according to the revised content to ensure consistency with the provisions of the Charity Law.
Jin Jinping, director of the Non-Profit Organization Law Research Center of Peking University, believes that in the next step, the internal governance structure of charitable organizations still needs to be regulated and improved at the legal level, and the balance between industry self-discipline and external supervision needs to be further promoted by law.
Some experts also pointed out that the revision of the Charity Law clarifies that charitable trusts to carry out charitable activities enjoy tax incentives, but what kind of preferential treatment they enjoy needs to be further formulated by relevant departments to clarify specific departmental rules or policy documents.
People's Daily (2024-02-01 18th Edition)