The Chinese "Administrative Procedural Law" was legislated in April 1989, and was enacted on October 1, 1990. Since its implementation, it has played an important role in promoting the improvement of the administrative legislation, improving the administration of the administrative organ by law, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations and maintaining social stability. But with the development of the situation, the law has increasingly revealed its insufficiencies. In the face of the escalating contradiction between the public and the officials, the administrative litigation system appears to be helpless and its role and function has failed to be given full play. And, it becomes more and more difficult for various rules legislated in the establishment of the "Administrative Procedural Law" to adapt to Chinese social reality with three difficulties, including "difficulty of cases filing, trial difficulty and enforcement difficulty", in practice. To deal with the above three difficulties, China had incorporated the amendment of the "Administrative Procedural Law" in the legislation plan of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress as early as 2003.The 12th session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress had implemented three deliberation from December 25, 2013 to November 1, 2014, and finally issued the "Decision on Amending the Administrative Procedure Law ".
According to the current situation of the Chinese politics, economy and social development, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) , in combination with the rich experience of judicial practice of the courts at all levels, implemented relatively comprehensive amendment on the "Administrative Procedural Law". The articles of "Administrative Procedural Law" increased from 75 to 103 after revision. The main amended content is as follows: first, further open channels for litigation, strengthen the protection of civil litigation. For this, the scope of administrative lawsuit is expanded with "the specific administrative act" renamed as "administrative behavior," which leaves space for expanding the scope of administrative litigation in the future. The normative documents formulated by the State Council and local people's governments and relevant departments in addition to administrative rules and regulations should be conditionally incorporated in the scope of administrative litigation. The plaintiff qualification is expanded and the citizens, legal persons or other organizations, having a stake in administrative behavior, also can hold the plaintiff qualification. The filing procedure is refined with clear rules made for the filing registration system and the legal responsibility of the people's court refusing to file. The prosecution deadline is extended. And the deadline for the citizens, legal persons or other organizations to directly file a suit in people's court is changed from the original three months to six months. Secondly, part of the trial system is adjusted to guarantee the impartiality of the trial results. The trial level regulation of the administrative cases in the first instance is improved. The cases of filing a suit for the administrative action of the local government should be under the jurisdiction of the intermediate court. The administrative cases should be incorporated in the cross administrative region jurisdiction. With the approval of the Supreme People's Court, the Higher Peoples Court can determine several administrative cases under the jurisdiction of the people's court across the administrative areas. Thirdly, the supervision of the people’s court for the administrative organ should be strengthened, and the administrative disputes should be solved in essence. It is necessary to expand the scope of the rational review of the people's court, and make clear rules on the responding system for the head of the administrative organization, the defendant qualification of the reconsideration organization, the legal consequences caused by the administrative organ’s failing to fulfill the judgment within the specified time.
The amendment for "Administrative Procedural Law " can not be settled at one go and there is still a great space left. Firstly, the scope of accepting cases can be further expanded, and the administrative fact behavior, administrative contract, administrative guidance and other non-mandatory administrative behavior are also can be incorporated in the scope of accepting cases. Secondly, the scope of the defendant of administrative lawsuit remains to be further expanded. The qualification of the defendant of administrative lawsuit should adopt the "standards of public function” to involve public administrative organizations that exercise public administrative function other than the administrative body in defendant. Thirdly, the principle of legality review should no longer be acted as an unique principle in the administrative litigation. The implementation of this principle in practice leads to the Chinese administrative trial mode, namely the "unanimism of revocation litigation ". And it also causes the single administrative lawsuit type in China.Thefutureamendmentshouldfocusonmakingthepeople'scourt,tothemaximumextent,respondtotheappealoftheadministrativerelativeperson,andimplementing legislative design on administrative litigation cases to classify them.