Research On The System Of Public Hearings In China

In the late 1990s, system of "Hearing" emerged in public administration in China. Especially, public hearings, which involve public interest, such as rate hearings, caught our attention, and have initiated a series of disputes. However, a systematic research of public hearings hasn't been made, or if, it often studied the theme of extraterritorial theory, which in turn made it impossible to provide effective guidance to the legislation and practice of public hearings. Thus, scholars should explore the mechanism of survival to public hearings in China.The Academic Dissertation, based on national conditions of China, combined with the legislation and practice on public hearings, tries to explain the survival mechanism of public hearing with the length of six chapters. The path is as follows:Chapter I try to define the concept of public hearings and introduce its development in China. In defining the concept of public hearing, the Dissertation retrospects the development of "hearing" and"public hearing"in America, and finds that "public hearing" and "hearing" are not necessarily related, which sharing with different theoretical foundation. Thinking about the theoretical study and practice of public hearings in China,"public hearing"will be defined as "some kind of administrative procedure in the way of public meeting, presiding by administrative organs, which pursues to listen to the opinions and suggestions of the public and to establish a pattern of interests or modify the structure of interests. Then, it clarifies the relations between public hearing and hearing, administrative decision-making hearing, symposium, and argumentation. Finally, the Dissertation gives the profile of legislation on public hearing.Chapter II aims at analyzing the value of public hearing to the administrative organs and the public. To the administrative organs, public hearing has three aspects of positive value: meeting the public's needs of survival, respect, security and self-actualization, so as to enhance the legitimacy of public administration; promoting the administrative organs to comply with the rule of law; relaxing the social conflict and establishing a mechanism for consultation and cooperation between the administrative organs and the public. Public hearing also has three aspects of negative value to the administrative organs: may increase administrative costs, lower administrative efficiency and reduce public confidence in the administrative organs. The positive value of public hearing to the pubic includes cultivating public awareness of the nature of the subject, conducing to the public to obtain "process benefits", and protecting the substantial rights and interests of the public. The negative value of public hearing to the pubic includes increasing the cost, lowering the confidence in the administrative organs. Subsequently, the Dissertation suggests that we should treat the value of public hearing with rationality, and in the near future, the value of public hearing such as meeting the multiple needs and protecting the lawful rights and interests of the public should be pursued.Chapter III is the environmental analysis for public hearing, which in order to find the factors that influence and impede the development of public hearing. This Chapter analyzes the three aspects of the environment : firstly, the policy environment is that China is undergoing a period of social transition, and she selects the value of harmony, the protection of human rights, social justice and democratic administration, which will be realized by public participation including public hearing. On the legal environment, Constitution, which says "building a socialist country ruled by law" and "the state respects and safeguards human rights", protect the private property of citizens, and so on, is calling for the introduction of public hearing; at the same time, principle of accepting supervision and the People's Congress System put forward some requests on public hearing. On the psychological environment, to administrative organs and the public, the need for public hearing is increasing, but at the same time, they are doubtful of public hearing.Chapter IV, based on Chapter II and Chapter III, discusses the objective of the legislation on public hearing and the scope of application of public hearing. In analyzing the legislative objective of public hearing, Chapter IV looks back to the existing legislative objective of public hearing, analyzes the relationship between them, and finally, points out that in the current period, protecting the lawful rights and interests of the citizens, legal persons and other organizations, equally and fairly, should be the lowest objective of public hearing. With the direction of above-mentioned legislative objective, the scope of application of public hearing should be decided by legislature, and all administrative matters will falls within the scope of mandatory public hearing, discretionary public hearing, and prohibitive public hearing.With the direction of legislative objective of public hearing, the practice of China's legislation and public hearings, Chapter V inspects and reviews main systems of public hearing. Firstly, the Dissertation analyses the system of attendees, and reconstructs it as follows: the attendees should be divided into hearings and participants, the former includes the hearing-organs, the organs to implement public hearing, hearing examiners, the staff to undertake the administrative matters, and assistants; the latter includes interested parties, superintendents, cooperators and auditors. At the same time, the Dissertation analyzes the rights and obligations to all of them. Secondly, Chapter V analyses the system of hearing notice, including the necessity of hearing notice, its basic contents and its requirements to the time. Thirdly, Chapter V analyses the extension, suspension and termination of public hearing. Finally, Chapter V discusses the content and force adeffect of hearing-record and hearing-summary, and claims that the force adeffect of hearing-record lies on whether all of the interested parties have a chance to participate in public hearing, however, the recommendations from the hearing examiner in hearing-summary are not binding to decision-makers absolutely.Chapter VI analyses some kinds of external safeguard systems to public hearing briefly, including : nurturing and developing the social interest groups to enhance the public's ability to persuade the administrative organs; establishing the right of free press without liability to guide the parties (representatives) to fully explain their views; clearing the administrative organs'obligation to disclosing information, so as to protect the public's right to know, strengthen their ability to defense; reforming the system of administrative litigation to promote the development of public hearing.