The legal procedure to abolish the re-education through labor, or Laojiao, system could kick in as early as next month during the meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People Congress (NPC), according to experts, as people await the release of a plan detailing how institutions for re-education through labor could change roles.

The full text of the Communist Party of China Central Committee's decision on major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reform was published Friday, providing a road map for China's further development.

In the document, the Party said China will abolish its decades-old controversial re-education through labor system as part of a major effort to protect human rights.

Approved by the Standing Committee of the NPC in 1957, the program usually takes in minor offenders whose offences are not severe enough to take them to court.

"To start the legal procedures, we need the NPC and the State Council to announce the abolition and the Ministry of Public Security to implement it," said Wang Xixin, a law professor from Peking University.

"As the Standing Committee of the NPC is holding a meeting in December, it is possible that the legal procedure to abolish the re-education through labor system could officially kick in next month," said Wang.

According to the Bureau of Reeducation-through-labor Administration under the Ministry of Justice, there are currently 351 re-education through labor centers nationwide with over 50,000 detainees in these facilities as of the end of 2012.

Institutions for re-education through labor are seeking new roles after the decision to abolish them. In the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Southwest China's Yunnan Province, the former center of re-education through labor will be transformed into a drug rehab center.

Hu Xingdou, a law professor with the Beijing Institute of Technology and a long-time advocate of the abolition, told the Global Times on Sunday that the re-education through labor centers would be changed into drug rehab centers, prisons and detention centers.

"Some guards working in the Laojiao center can work as judicial policeman while some staff can be trained into consultants to work in drug rehab centers or communities-based correction centers," said Hu, adding that a more detailed plan could be revealed after the NPC meeting.

Ma Huaide, vice president of the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times that after the abolishment of the system, new rules need to be created.

"Under the regulations of public security, some habitual offenders of minor crimes, such as thieves, are sent to the re-education through labor centers as their offenses are not severe enough to be sentenced. After the abolition, their punishment needs to be reconsidered," said Ma, adding that another option is to send these people to community-based correction centers.