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Safeguard Lishui with good laws, promote sound social governance, and lead reform and development.
Since officially obtaining local legislative power on September 25, 2015, under the strong leadership of the Municipal Party Committee, the Lishui Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee has closely integrated with our city's realities, consciously served the central work of the Party Committee, practiced the concept of whole-process people’s democracy, innovated scientific legislation work mechanisms, enhanced legislative capacity and quality, focused on areas such as urban and rural construction and management, ecological civilization construction, historical and cultural protection, and grassroots governance, and enacted 1 procedural regulation and 14 substantive regulations. We have continuously advanced scientific, democratic, and law-based legislation, establishing the “four beams and eight pillars” of the rule of law in Lishui, injecting a steady stream of legal vitality into Lishui’s economic and social leapfrog high-quality development.
Legislation for the People, Legislation Serving the People
Where the people’s hearts point, there legislation directs.
Over the past decade, Lishui has adhered to the principle of “legislation for the people, legislation serving the people”, focusing on the “key trivial matters” of the masses, using the rigid constraints of local regulations to safeguard people’s beautiful lives.
Urban appearance and environmental sanitation are the most fundamental tasks in city management and are closely related to every citizen’s quality of life. Lishui’s first local regulation focused on urban environment.
The person in charge of the Legal Affairs Committee of Lishui Municipal People’s Congress stated that with the accelerated urbanization, expanding urban scale, and rapid population growth, Lishui’s urban environmental construction and urban appearance management face new situations and problems, making the formulation of the “Lishui Municipal Urban Appearance and Environmental Sanitation Management Regulations” particularly necessary.
On September 30, 2016, at the 41st meeting of the Third Standing Committee of Lishui Municipal People’s Congress, the “Lishui Municipal Urban Appearance and Environmental Sanitation Management Regulations” was officially passed, announcing the birth of Lishui’s first substantive local regulation.
“Lishui is clean, tidy, and civilized, making us extremely happy to live here and leaving a deep impression on visitors from outside!” said Wu Feiyan, a citizen who has been engaged in tourism work for over 20 years, with pride.
Polishing the urban environment and creating a National Civilized City cannot be achieved without the strong support of local regulations. In 2017, Lishui achieved outstanding results among 100 prefecture-level cities nationwide, ranking “fourth in the nation, first in the province”, and successfully obtained the title of National Civilized City. To consolidate the successful experiences and practices of civilized city creation and further guide and regulate civilized behavior among citizens, in 2020, Lishui introduced the “Lishui Municipal Civilized Behavior Promotion Regulations”, promoting the “continuous creation and long-term maintenance” of civilized cities.
Enacting laws needed by the people, enacting laws that benefit society.
Addressing issues that citizens strongly respond to, such as dog attacks, public disturbances, and damage to urban environmental sanitation, Lishui introduced the “Lishui Municipal Dog Management Regulations”, clarifying departmental responsibilities, establishing long-term management mechanisms, defining behavioral norms for dog owners, and enhancing the scientific level of dog management.
To meet the elderly care needs of the aging population, in 2023, our city introduced the “Lishui Municipal Home-based Elderly Care Service Regulations”, providing better home-based elderly care services for seniors from a legal perspective and safeguarding their basic rights and interests.
To overcome development bottlenecks such as difficulties in attracting and retaining talents in mountainous areas and low conversion rates of scientific and technological achievements, in 2023, Lishui also introduced the nation's first local regulation themed on talent-technology integration - the “Lishui Municipal Regulations on Promoting the Integrated Development of Talent and Technology”, assisting in regional talent aggregation and the construction of scientific and technological innovation systems.
Protecting the Ecology, Preserving Ancient Culture
Lishui is an important birthplace and pioneering practice site of the concept that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”. To protect this land of lucid waters and lush mountains, the Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee persists with one blueprint to the end, carrying forward the mission from one term to the next, fully utilizing legislative power, bringing into play the principal role of People’s Congress representatives, and establishing good laws for ecological protection.
Ensuring drinking water safety is a top priority directly related to people’s health and life safety. The “Lishui Municipal Drinking Water Source Protection Regulations” standardize ecological protection in drinking water source protection zones and management of rural drinking water sources in Lishui, providing legal guarantees for people to drink safe water.
The 800-li Oujiang River flows eastward, converging in Lishui urban area to form Nanming Lake. The lake area boasts enchanting natural scenery, but with the development of industrial and agricultural production along the banks and the improvement of residents’ living standards, this body of clear water could no longer bear the ecological burden. On March 1, 2019, the “Lishui Municipal Nanming Lake Protection and Management Regulations” came into effect. “Creating a law for a lake not only demonstrates our determination to govern Nanming Lake but also reflects our ambition to pursue green and high-quality development,” said the person in charge of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress.
Today, Nanming Lake has become an important external display window for Lishui’s construction as a famous landscape and cultural city.
Beyond water, air quality concerns residents’ health and the city’s development future. In 2021, the “Lishui Municipal Fireworks and Firecrackers Operation and Discharge Management Regulations” was introduced; the following year, the “Lishui Municipal Dust Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations” was enacted. Multiple laws working together have curbed the bad habit of setting off fireworks and firecrackers for years and intensified urban dust pollution control, helping Lishui win the “Blue Sky Protection Battle”.
For years, Lishui’s regional water environment quality and air quality have consistently ranked among the top in the province and top ten nationwide, becoming the “only one” among inland prefecture-level cities nationwide.
With a thousand-year history, Chuzhou (ancient name for Lishui) possesses profound cultural heritage. Currently, the city has 268 traditional Chinese villages, ranking first in East China and third nationwide. Additionally, there are 198 provincial-level traditional villages, ranking first in the province.
To comprehensively promote systematic protection of traditional villages, the “Lishui Municipal Traditional Village Protection Regulations” came into being, making the protection of traditional villages scattered throughout the city law-based and regulation-guided, allowing the most beautiful nostalgia and rural revitalization to “meet each other”.
Longquan celadon firing technique is a world-class intangible cultural heritage. The Dayao Longquan Kiln Site is a national key cultural relic protection unit. Focusing on the overall protection of the Dayao Longquan Kiln Site, the Lishui Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee specifically formulated the “Lishui Municipal Dayao Longquan Kiln Site Protection Regulations”, using scientific legislation to protect historical and cultural heritage.
As the location of the revolutionary old base area in southwestern Zhejiang, Lishui is the only prefecture-level city in the province where all counties (cities, districts) are revolutionary old base areas, with relatively abundant revolutionary site resources. In 2021, Lishui introduced the province’s first local regulation on revolutionary site protection - the “Lishui Municipal Revolutionary Site Protection Regulations”.
Since the implementation of the regulations, various parts of Lishui have strived to achieve collective economic income growth in villages driven by red tourism through measures such as renovating revolutionary sites, strengthening protection of martyrs’ memorial facilities, and inheriting red genes.
Lishui also possesses China’s first and one of the world’s first batch of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems - the Qingtian Rice-Fish Co-culture System. On June 5 this year, the “Lishui Municipal Qingtian Rice-Fish Co-culture System Protection and Development Regulations” officially came into effect, providing a specialized legal “protective umbrella” for this millennium-old “living fossil” of agricultural culture.
Mechanism Innovation, Strengthening Foundations
Establishing a grassroots legislative contact point network of “20 static points + N dynamic points”; connecting to the national legislation “express train”; pioneering legislative debates in the province...
Over the past decade, Lishui has continuously explored and innovated in establishing local regulations, launching many innovative work mechanisms.
Today, static grassroots legislative contact points have achieved full territorial coverage, forming a liaison network. Dynamic contact, based on specific legislative topics, temporarily establishes contact points in relevant communities, villages, or even industry associations, making legislative research more precise and down-to-earth. For example, when formulating the revolutionary site protection regulations, dynamic contact points were established in villages concentrated with red resources.
By the end of 2024, the Lishui Municipal People’s Congress Representative Liaison Station successfully became the first prefecture-level city’s grassroots legislative contact point of the National People’s Congress Legal Affairs Committee in the province. This means that grassroots voices from Lishui can be directly transmitted to national legislative bodies. In nearly a year, this contact point has collected and submitted opinions and suggestions for 10 draft laws including the “Private Economy Promotion Law”, some of which have been adopted.
Making the legislative process an active practice of whole-process people’s democracy. To this end, Lishui has innovatively constructed work mechanisms for absorbing public opinion and gathering popular wisdom.
When developing regulations such as the “Lishui Municipal Urban Appearance and Environmental Sanitation Management Regulations” and the “Lishui Municipal Property Management Regulations”, Lishui utilized legislative debates to allow different interest groups to “confront each other on the same stage” and “reason face-to-face”, both “clarifying matters and uniting people’s hearts”, while allowing legislative bodies to understand and grasp comprehensive situations.
Good laws promote good governance, and standardization, systematization, and efficiency are the foundations. As early as 2016, Lishui formulated and introduced the “Lishui Municipal Local Regulation Formulation Regulations”, providing standards and basis for giving play to the leading and promoting role of legislation and comprehensively advancing the construction of the rule of law in Lishui.
Subsequently, Lishui also formulated 20 supporting legislative work systems, including local legislative technical specifications and regulation drafting work rules, and implemented a three-year action plan for local regulation enforcement inspections and post-legislation evaluation of regulations, promoting effective linkage between supervision and legislation.
“Focus on quality and efficiency improvement, and make solid efforts in deepening the construction of a law-based government; practice the people-serving purpose, and seek practical results in enhancing people’s sense of legal gain.” The seventh meeting of the Lishui Municipal Party Committee’s Comprehensive Law-based City Construction Committee held on August 27 this year emphasized the need for precise legislation to respond to people’s livelihood concerns.
Standing at a new starting point, the Lishui Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee will continue to play its leading role in legislation, make up for shortcomings, and enhance advantages, providing solid legal guarantees for high-quality development and the construction of a common prosperity demonstration zone through higher-level legislation.