The Standing Committee of Yunnan Provincial People’s Congress has passed a “Decision to Openly Solicit Legislative Items and Law Drafts,” mobilizing citizens, enterprises, public institutions, social organizations and other groups to provide legislative items and law drafts. This is the first attempt in the locality to involve the public in the legislative process.
The legislative items to be solicited openly this time mainly involve the following six aspects: enlarging the industrial opening range, promoting investment strength, exploiting resources, and promoting developed productive forces and advanced culture; promoting the readjustment of the economic structure, including the urban and rural structure, and the industrial structure, and speeding up the development of private sector; supporting leading enterprises, promoting agricultural industrialization, invigorating agricultural products circulation, developing green industry and safe agricultural products, and increasing farmers’ income; returning farmland to forest and grassland, improving the eco-environment and the human habitation quality for urban and rural citizens; realizing the three goals such as building up a leading environment-friendly economic province, along the industrial development way with provincial characteristics and in tune with the times; enforcing the construction of the social security system, pushing forward the transformation of government functions, strengthening social services, enhancing the unity of various ethnic groups, and maintaining social stability.
Na Qi, leader of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, said the move is an obvious signal of transforming the local government concept. Drawing on market power and public participation in legislative activities were not mere technical endeavors in procedure. Due to the anticipated depth and range in collecting information, the trial would create foundations for ascertaining the rights of public supervision, ascertaining public opinion, and building a favorable capital market environment. Of equal importance is that the trial may help to enhance the transparency of legislative activity and demonstrating the government concern for the public’s requirements in terms of laws and regulations, to create obvious improvement in government efficiency and administrative ability.
Specialists suggest that there should be even more space for the trial in terms of the contents to be solicited. For example, public opinion on abolishing some unsuitable laws and regulations should also be solicited. At the same time, the introduction or abolition of laws should go beyond local considerations and take the larger picture into consideration.
(china.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, August 12, 2002)
