On The Research Of The Legalization Of Government Performance Assessment In China

It has been gradually recognized and accepted by the academic circles and government in China that government performance assessment is playing more and more role in improving practical performance of Chinese government. However, it must be realized that with the reconstructing of government organs and with much more obvious effects of performance assessment, there exist so many problems inherent in the institutional structure, which are seriously reducing the effect of performance assessment. Therefore, some certain factors—the way to strengthen the legal construction of government performance assessment, to normalize the behavior of the participants in the system with legal methods and to establish government performance assessment popular with legalization and institutionalization—will have a great significance to the healthy development of government performance assessment. The thesis, based on the whole process of government performance assessment, attempts to present a planning to establish a systematic legal frame based on legislation, law-enforcement, responsibility mechanism, relief mechanism, etc., aiming at providing important implications for the theory and practice of government performance assessment in China.In addition to a brief introduction and a conclusion, the thesis is composed of four parts.Part One is supposed to analyze the concept of the legalization of government performance assessment concerning the definition of government performance, government performance assessment and the legalization of government performance assessment respectively. Then the different objectives of the legalization of government performance assessment are discussed. First, Law of Performance Assessment must be drawn up according to the constitution and laws with a purpose of certifying the position of performance assessment to be expected and make it become a fundamental factor of government public administration. Secondly, it is necessary to standardize the legal relationship of government performance assessment and try to establish the authority image of performance assessment with the guide of law, ensuring the institution of assessment to enjoy the right of exempting itself from the interference imposed by any government organs, any public organizations and any other individuals in the process of researching and evaluating government activities. Thirdly, it should be made possible to effectively transfer and feedback the result of evaluation with enough reliability and transparency and draw public attention to it, striving to improve the degree of satisfaction shared by the public towards government and faithfully establish the legislative spirit—the virtuous interaction between government and society.Part Two is intended to expound the necessity of the legalization of government performance assessment. First the drawbacks inherent in the system are listed in the thesis. Specifically speaking, the fundamental laws of government performance assessment are very far from unified standard; legislation very far from practical operation; law-enforcement very far from normalization and impartiality and operative environment very far from health and effectiveness. Secondly, based on the above problems, the thesis points out that the establishment of legalization of government performance assessment has a very important practical significance. It can deal with the right of government performance assessment in a legal level, standardize the behaviors of the participants undertaking the responsibility to assess government performance, safeguard the normal order of the assessment with reference to the educational function of laws, reinforce the management level and the practical application and promotion of government performance assessment.Considering the analysis of existing drawbacks and realistic significance of legalization of the system, the thesis comes to a conclusion: it is especially necessary to establish the legalization-based frame of government performance assessment in the current stage of social development.Part Three attempts to elaborate that the legalization of government performance assessment is a matter of great urgency. In China, an important theory—Three Represents—stipulates that the Party should work for the public and leading officials should serve the people whole-heartedly and demands Chinese government should be transformed into a service-responsibility government. So undoubtedly government performance assessment should be established based on the concept of serving the public instead of the bureaucratic class and upper-level society, which effectively distinguishes itself from government performance assessment in the western world. To take effective methods to carry through the theory—Three Presents to the end, the Party endeavors to promote the development of government performance assessment, serve the public whole-heartedly, and foster and enhance the work theory—fix the attention on the practice, seek truth and deal with concrete matters and satisfy the specific demands of the public, aiming at enjoying the trust of the broad masses of people by continuously improving the practical activities of government performance. In reality, it appears to be much more imperative to reform Chinese government in the context of primary establishment of socialist market economy and WTO entry.Part Four aims to discuss a practical planning as to the legalization of government performance assessment. To establish a steady and perfect government performance assessment, the special legislation relevant to the system must be made. As a result, at first, the part puts forward the legislative planning of Chinese government performance assessment, that is to say, to establish the legal system of government performance assessment with the principle of democratic, scientific and fair legislation. Government performance assessment is a system composed of many steps and stages. The relatively unified legal stipulation to the steps and contents of government performance assessment tends to make performance assessment more normalized and reasonable.First, the content of the assessment should be stipulated according to the legislation. It consists of the legislation of the main body, the assessment project, the target, the composition of the report, the openness and comparison of the result, the summing-up and reward and punishment as well as the association of performance assessment and the financial budget of government performance assessment.Secondly, the procedure of the assessment should be normalized according to the legislation. Most experts consider that one of the most apparent weaknesses of government performance assessment in the current stage is lack of normalization of the procedure of the assessment and at will to a great extent. Therefore, it is necessary, based on the legislation of government performance assessment, to solve non-standardized assessment procedures. Although considering different objects, different results, different purposes and different targets of the assessment, laws cannot provide a very detailed and unified procedure of assessment, it is very possible to set up a number of key fundamental procedures government performance assessment should strictly follow through legislation including presenting the planning of government performance assessment, establishing the organization and the target of government performance assessment, collecting the ways of measurement of government performance assessment, compiling the report of government performance assessment with a purpose of the feedback and the application of the result of government performance assessment.The legislation in the level of substantive and procedural law ensures that government performance assessment is conducted in accordance with laws. However, to guarantee the legislation of government performance assessment to play a practical function in the law-enforcement, it is undoubtedly necessary and important to realize the legalization of supervision and review of the system. Referring to the practical experience of the legalization of supervision and review taken by British government performance assessment, Chinese government should pay special attention to the following factors: an orderly democracy, the prerequisite for the improvement of the mechanism of supervision of government performance assessment, the procedure priority, the fundamentals for the improvement of the mechanism of supervision of government performance assessment and the asymmetric information, the key of the improvement of the mechanism of supervision of government performance assessment.In view of the above-mentioned various drawbacks of the stipulation of legal responsibility in the system, it has been suggested clearly defining the section in charge with government performance assessment, the main body (assessment organization and experts), assessment object and the legal responsibility undertaken by assessors based on the legislation of government performance assessment. The Chinese government performance assessment practice is just conducted in a primary stage. In this process, the legal privilege shared by assessment object is violated as a result of the unreasonable and non-standardized executive behavior of assessment organization and assessment body. The specific measures should be taken to deal with the difficulty, such as to strengthen the establishment of the appeal system and improve the relief channel of government performance assessment through the legislation To conclude, the establishment of the legalization of government performance assessment is a complex social system project. In addition to greatly enhance the enactment of the laws and regulation relevant to government performance assessment and attempt to make a solution to the situation without legal basis, the government and its staff should change their concepts, establish the theory of service-responsibility government, actively fulfill their obligations under the law, correctly implement the legal system of government performance assessment and ensure the practical application of laws and regulations, striving at promoting the progress of the legalization of government performance assessment in China.