China's top legislature closed its five-day bimonthly session yesterday, approving a nomination of the country's new minister of public security and adopting four law bills.

Lawmakers voted to approve the nomination of Meng Jianzhu, former Party chief of east China's Jiangxi Province, as the country's new minister of Public Security.

Meng, born in 1947, replaces Zhou Yongkang, who was elected Politburo Standing Committee member of the CPC Central Committee at the first plenary session of the 17th CPC Central Committee early this week.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress also adopted a draft amendment to the country's 10-year-old Law on Lawyers which will make it easier for lawyers to meet criminal suspects and obtain evidence.

The amendment says lawyers, provided they have the requisite papers such as their legal practitioner certificate, are entitled to meet criminal suspects or defendants in person once judicial organs have finished their initial interrogation or taken mandatory measures.

Defense attorneys and criminal suspects will not be monitored when they have a conversation, the amendment said, and defense lawyers are entitled to look up all files and materials relating to the case.

Defense lawyers are entitled to apply to prosecuting organs and people's courts to collect and provide relevant evidence, and use courts to get witnesses to testify in court.

Lawmakers also voted to pass a draft law that aims to ban "vanity projects" or unnecessarily ostentatious real estate projects, frequently seen as a result of blind pursuing of urban development.

The new law says that urban and rural development plans should be drawn up in line with the principles of conserving land resources, environmental protection, cultural heritage protection, disaster prevention and relief, public health and public security.

Government officials or others responsible for urban or rural planning, who abuse their offices, will face criminal proceedings or be given administrative penalties according to the severity of their wrongdoing.

Illegal buildings not included in city and countryside development plans must be torn down and individuals or organizations responsible will be fined up to 10 percent of the buildings' total value. If they refuse to tear down the unlawful buildings, the buildings will be confiscated.

To ensure public participation and supervision, the new law says that urban and rural development plans should be made public to ensure public opinion can influence the planning process and to prevent local government officials from presumptuously amending the plans.

Two other law amendments were also adopted at Sunday's closing meeting, including one to the Law on Conserving Energy and one to the Civil Procedure Law.

To ensure the country's energy-saving policy to be faithfully implemented by the local governments, the amendment to the Law on Conserving Energy says that work carried out by local government officials in energy conservation should be integrated into the assessment of their political performance.

It also says that local energy saving standards in the construction industry must be stricter than those set by the central government and industrial associations as energy saving on buildings is closely related to the local geographic situation.

The revised law, which almost doubles the articles of the original one, details measures to avoid energy waste, improve energy efficiency and cut pollution emissions.

Other energy-saving measures include strict control of the indoor temperature in public buildings and restrictions on decorative lighting for large buildings.

In a five-year plan to 2010, China pledged to cut energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20 percent, or 4 percent each year. However, the consumption actually fell by just 1.23 percent last year.

The amendment to the 16-year-old Civil Procedure Law will help address the long-standing problem that civil court rulings are not carried out.

Chinese courts found that in 2006, 2.13 million civil case rulings had not been carried out by the due date. Almost half of those rulings have still not been implemented, and the verdicts remain empty words on a piece of judicial paper.

The amendment multiplies by a factor of ten fines for those who refuse to execute a civil court ruling -- fines climb from 1,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan (US$ 1300) for individual offenders, and from 30,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan (US$ 39,000) for companies.

The law also said that those who refuse to cooperate with civil courts in making sure a ruling is executed may be detained.

Also at the closing meeting of the five-day session, lawmakers voted to expel two deputies suspected of law and discipline breaches.

One of the deputies is Wang Xiaojin, board chairman of the Gujing Group, one of China's largest distilleries based in east China's Anhui Province.

Wang has been under investigation by the discipline inspection department since April this year for "suspected serious discipline violations", earlier reports said.

Eight high-ranking officials from the liquor company had been delivered to prosecutors to face charges of bribery and corruption. Wang will soon be handed over to the Anhui provincial procuratorate and face prosecution, the Procuratorial Daily previously reported.

Another ousted deputy is Wang Dingguo, former board chairman of the Qingjiang River Hydropower Development Co. Ltd. in central China's Hubei Province.

Wang was expelled for suspected involvement in "serious discipline breaches and violation of criminal laws", according to a report delivered to NPC Standing Committee members. No further details were made available.

During the past four years, at least 28 NPC deputies were expelled from the national parliament for graft and other law and discipline breaches. The current NPC has nearly 3,000 deputies, who hold a five-year tenure.

The meeting also ratified an amendment to the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) to enhance access to medicines when dealing with public health emergencies.