Analysis On Legislative Hearings By The Local Governments In China

The word"hearing"comes from the common law. The basic spirit of the word"hearing"is to guarantee the impartiality of outcome by due process. In 1946, the United States enacted the "Federal Administrative Procedure Act", clearly stating that the hearing procedures shall be the core of administrative procedures . Subsequently, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, and other countries also have formulated a unified administrative procedural law, without exception, providing the content of the hearing procedures. As a form of democratically legistlation-making, the legeislative hearing has such characteristics different from seminars or argument meetings: the hearing is more open, the party is the person related to legislation, the hearing process is defensive, and the hearing procedures, the party's rights and obligations and the effect of the hearing have strict regulation. The hearing has such effect as collecting decision-making data, expressing and balancing the benefits, and propagandizing the decision, which are very important to promote democratic legislation. So, other countries pay more and more attention to the hearing, and holding a hearing basically becomes a necessary procedure of considering the act. Although every country has different procedure, it basically has such characteristics:First, it has specific provision on the hearing matters, the party, the degree and etc.; Second, it is strongly democratic, which means the content of hearing is broad, the common people can apply for a hearing, both party's benefit is considered, and the process is defensive; Third, it has strict regulation on procedure, which is separated to deciding a hearing , preparing a hearing, holding a hearing and etc.; Fourth, it is open, which includes proclaiming the content, holding a hearing openly, displaying the hearing notes and etc.. Generally speaking, the practice of other countries is very mature, which means the emphasis of study is the hearing system itself, not the policies and such problems as how to get the best benefit in a hearing. Meanwhile, the legislative hearing in China is adopted so late, and imported from other countries.On July 16, 1999, the legal bureau of Shenzhen City Council held the first hearing. Subsequently,"the legislative law"and"the regulation-enacting procedure"make provisions on legislation of the people's congress and the government respectively, and local provisions are made accordingly and some are put into pratice. But generally speaking, there are many problems at the aspect of local government legislation as follows: First, the role of the hearing by local government legislature is not exact, just in form; Second, the system is not perfect, such as no specific provision, low effectiveness, unspecific content, abstract area which is not good for practice, unclear concept for representor, lack of clarity to the rights and obligations and etc.; Third, public participation in the legislative hearings are not enthusiastic; Fourth, the procedure is not perfect: unclear matters, the choice of representor is totally on the basis of the organizing units, it has little distinction between heardings and seminars, lack of openess, no supervision on the enforcement of the hearing result; Fifth, it is lack of the money. So, the scholars of our country also study deeply, while much of it focuses on the legislation of the people's congress and in theory, being lack of study on the government legislation and in pratice.Therefore, the author make analysis on the legislative hearing prior to the publication of three Qingdao municipal government regulations such as "Qingdao Municipal Economic apply for housing management," the "city of Qingdao urban minimum-income families low-rent housing management," and the "city of Qingdao commodity housing management approach". The author will point out the direction of the government legislation of China, by making analysis on the hearing background, hearing rule and hearing operation process.First, starting from the concept, reasonably define the position of local legislative hearing, neither exaggerating the role of hearing or requesting everything to be solved by the hearing, nor ignoring the importance of democratic participation in legislative form; Second, fulfilling the relevant system-building, clearly establishing and standerdizing the legal basis for the legislative hearing by locall government; Again, consummating the hearing procedures: establishing the inquiry system of legislation hearing, confirming the legislation hearing matters resonably, specifying the participation time of legislative hearing; confirming the principles and rules of selecting the hearing representor in open and transparent way, clearly defining the rights and obligations of legislative hearing parties, especially confirming the principle of focusing on the opposite opinions, guaranteeing the defensiveness of the hearing, making the hearing process open, specifying the handling measure of the hearing result to fulfill the role of the hearing in deed.