Chinese legislative experts have called for a law on human rights and the conception of human rights protection to be referred to when making laws.

The clause, "the state respects and safeguards human rights" was put into the Constitution during the Second Session of the 10th National People's Congress.

Speaking at a forum on human rights development, which was held by the China Foundation for Human Rights Development (CFHRD) on Friday, Feng Jiancang, director of a human rights research center under the Ministry of Justice said China should enact the Law on Human Rights as soon as possible and formulate a pyramid-structured legal system to comprehensively protect human rights.

"The pyramid-structured legal system for human rights protection should be organized with the Constitution at the top, the Law on Human Rights at the upper middle and other laws, such as Law on Women Interests Protection, Law on Teenagers Protection and Law on the Disabled, at the lower middle and all regulations on citizen's rights protection at the bottom," Feng elaborated.

Liu Nan, research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said some content in the current laws, which offended the spirit of human rights protection, should be revised. For instance, the current Criminal Law and the Administrative Procedural Law have some loopholes for human rights protection.

Liu continued that the awareness of human rights protection should also be realized in the legislative proceedings in future. For instance, ordinary citizens should be allowed to attend the discussion during the process of law enacting.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2004)