Study On Veterinary Legal Framework And Legislation In China

With the development of economy and society, the connotation and denotation of veterinary service have undergone profound changes, not only involved in the diagnosis and treatment of animal diseases, but also in the production safety of animal raising industries, food safety, public health and ecological safety. Nowadays, veterinary service has become an important part of basic social public services. Since the reform and opening up, the system of veterinary laws and regulations in China has been gradually established, which effectively improve the integrated ability in the prevention and control of animal diseases. But there are still some problems in the legislation of veterinary laws, such as imperfect and defective law system, inadequate law enforcement, insufficient implementation, and other issues that need to be solved urgently. It has become the urgent issue that how to fit the new situation and new tasks in the development of veterinary medicine, and how to design and establish corresponding framework of law system to promote the development of veterinary medicine scientifically.In this paper, the principles, system model, legislative framework and main law contents for the establishment of the system in China were explored by the way of law study, considering the needs of veterinary service in new situation as the logical starting point based on the veterinary law legislation in China and using successful experience from other countries for reference, to provide legal theory to improve the system and to offer legal protection to enhance China’s ability for the prevention and control of animal epidemics according to laws. In accordance with the framework of the system proposed in this paper,through comparison and analysis on legislative system of other countries based on current situation of veterinary personnel management, related law system that need to be strengthened and improved for veterinary personnel management in China was presented, and definite outline of legal provisions to promote legislative progress for veterinary personnel was proposed.For establishment of the system, the basic meaning, main features, law relation, status and origin, legislative subject, principles, and execution of the system were discussed in this study. The differences of legislative initiative, draft proposal, legislative emphasis, legislative progress, behavior model, object of sanctions, law relation, law-abiding situation, amendment period, etc. between China and other countries were analysed and addressed. This paper focused on three aspects, including "persons" (veterinary personnel), "matters" (prevention and control of animal diseases, safety of animal-derived food) and "materials" (veterinary drugs, veterinary biological products and veterinary instruments), for establishing the system that is mutually supported and supplemented by the three law backbones, consisting of managements in veterinary personnel, veterinarian behavior, and veterinary drug and instrument. For system model, it presented parallel legislation of control and treatment of disease, veterinary instruments, veterinary personnel, etc to form a multi-layered tree model, including "law-law regulations-rules-regulated documents-procedures or standards, etc.". For legislative technique, it insisted to combine laws and regulations with technical standards to improve operability of regulations and execution of standards. For legislative contents, it presented that the law system should include three technical veterinary laws, four technical veterinary administrative regulations, 39 rules from Ministry of Agriculture, and a series of regulated documents and technical standards from Ministry of Agriculture, as well as a range of local laws and government regulations. For legislative emphasis, it shouldpromote to formulate or revise Animal Health Act, Veterinary Act, Veterinary Drug Act, Regulations on Management of Livestock Slaughter and Regulations on Management of Veterinary Instruments to speed up local veterinary legislative process and to perfect supporting regulations of veterinary laws.For veterinary personnel legislation, it presented that qualification admittance, qualification examination, practicing registration, veterinarian practice, continuing education and others for the practicing veterinarian system, and employment system of openness, equality, competition and merit for the official veterinarian system must be addressed. It suggests that the basic legislative framework should include general provision, certification and management of practicing veterinarian, management of animal clinics, admittance and management of rural veterinarians, veterinary assistants and official veterinarians, organizing function of veterinary associations, education system and penalty for veterinary personnel.