Refilection And Reconstruction Of "Railway Law"

Enacted in 1990, "Railway Law" is the basic law to regulate the rights and obligations in railway industry. As the first law of China’s railway industry, "Railway Law" is also the first special law of Chinese transportation industry. Since implemented in 1991, "Railway Law" played an important role in promoting the China’s development of railway industry. However, along with the changes of socio-economic environment and the separation of government from enterprises, the present "Railway Law" has been difficult to catch up with the railway operations and development in the new era. Therefore, it is imperative for us to rethink and reconstruct the railway law system, which has double significance in theory and practice.This paper is mainly composed of four parts. The first part is an introduction, which briefly introduces the research background, significance, research status, research content and methods, to overall present the core idea of this study. By using literature, historical research, comparative research and empirical analysis, this paper intends to analyze the railway legislation from the theoretical phenomenon to the problem in-depth, and to reconstruct a railway law which is suitable for our national situation by drawing on the extraterritorial experience.The second part is the overview of China railway legislation and the comparison of extraterritorial railway legal system. The China Railway legislative process since the late Qing Dynasty and its significance are recalled in this part., and the basic principles of legislation railway reconstruction are clarified. Furthermore, Japan’s incentives on railway construction investment and financing and the classification on the reform of railway construction management system are focused on in this part, as well as the successful experience of the United States to take control legislation as pilot and to regulate the relationship between the government and the market in freight reform, Canada’s emphasis on railway construction of supervision system and coordinate regulatory system, and the British classification on public subsidies and the problems on its railway supervision.The third part focuses on the content defects of the present "Railway Law". These problems concentrate on the construction management system, investment and financing system, public lines subsidies, railway freight and rail regulator. In practical terms:the railway construction lacks of power and the railway market lacks of effective competition; few sources of funding for railway construction and investment and financing channels for a single; the boundary of public-benefit railway transport and the public subsidies sources and policy are not clear enough; the railway freight management is too rigid and the freight is in a holistic lower level; the rail regulator lacks of legal protection and the professional supervisory authority functions need to be implemented. The study will lay emphasis on this part, because the perspective to the problem is what underlies the reconstruction of legislation.The fourth part is the fitting vision of China’s "Railway Law", which is the core of this study. In this part, firstly, holistic amendments to the framework of "Railway Law" are proposed. It includes that clarify the Railway Regulatory System in the General part; add rail transport management section; put the public transportation subsidies part and the railway freight part in this chapter; and add railway investment and financing part to the Railway construction management section. Then, some amendments will be proposed on the construction of the management system, investment and financing system, public lines subsidies, railway freight and rail regulatory. Specifically, it means to open up railway construction market to promote competition, to improve the relevant laws on railway construction, to clarify the rights and obligations of all sectors in railway construction; to fill the blanks in laws of railway investment and financing, to improve the risk control mechanism and to encourage social capital to enter the field of investment and to guarantee the right of operating to the rail; to clarify the related concepts of public transport and its scope of subsidies in "Railway Law" and to establish hierarchical subsidy mechanism; to make the freight more flexible on the basis of freight reform and to transit from government guided price to market adjusted price; to clarify the oversight mechanisms to the railway regulatory in "Railway law" to ensure regulatory independence. Based on practicality and operability, this study is hoped that will make a contribution to the amendments of China’s "Railway Law".