Research On Realization Of Chinese Citizen's Budgetary Participation Right Under Public Finance Mode

The modernization of national governance is not possible without a modernized financial system,which is the major development direction of China's future financial system reforms.Public finance mode is a modernized finance mode adapting to the modern market economy.China's current finance mode has gradually shifted from the previous construction-centered mode to public finance mode.It requires governments to abide by the democracy principle in financial decision-making,justice principle in financial spending and publicity principle in financial supervision when making public financial policies,that is,governments have to listen to,learn and adopt public will in financial decision–making,making sure citizens and governments have barrier-free communication in financial decision-making;all spending conforms to the public interest needs of the great majority provide public products and services as well as remedy market flaws in financial expenditure;governments are subject to various forms of supervisions from the citizen and achieve their public financial objective with their financial action not separating away from the objective.Budget activity,as an important component,is the basis of the of the public financial activity,so it also should conforms to the above requirements,that is,abiding by the principles of budgeting democracy,budgeting publicity and budgeting supervision,allowing citizens to learn the contents of government budgeting,participate in its budgetary decision-making process and have effective supervisions on its budgetary acts,in order to reduce government's black box operations and constrain its growing financial powers,that is to say,citizens' budgetary participation right needs to be ensured under the public finance mode.The exercise of citizens' budgetary participation right can help improve the country's modernized governance ability,smoothly carry out the national financial decision-making and strengthen citizens' master consciousness.The exercise of citizens' budgetary participation right is not only the necessary demand for public financial theory,it also has some other valid theoretical basis,including the theory of new public management,people's democracy theory and social contract theory and so on,which provide strong theoretic support for the exercise of citizens' budgetary participation right and also become the theoretical tool for citizens to exercise their budgetary participation right.There are two ways for citizens to exercise their budgetary participation right,which are indirect participation and direct participation.For a long time,the system of people's congress of China has been the major form for citizens' indirect participation in budgeting,but it has been facing many problems including short duration,formalization and privacy of budget deliberation,as well as the poor economic independency of the NPC and the lack of knowledge and high membership of officials among the NPC deputies.Direct participation is mainly in participatory budgeting form in China.Some places in China,such as Wenling in Zhejiang,Jiaozuo in Henan,Maizidian in Beijing and Minhang district in Shanghai,have made some practical explorations regarding this aspect,not only activating the budget supervision in NPC but also provide more ways for citizens to exercise their budgetary participation right.Surely there also remain lots of problems including government's lagging financial ideas,citizens' indifference in political participation,lacking of legal systems,superficial level of the participation,limited channels of participation and stagnant approaches of remedy,which directly hinder and restrict the realization of citizens' budgetary participation right.Citizen's participatory budget started early and was more developed in foreign countries,such as Porto Alegre in Brazil and Burlington in America,whose successes in ensuring the realization of citizens' budgetary participation right were good lessons worth learning from,such as local governments' strong support for citizens' budgetary participation,citizens' high participation enthusiasm and ability,intervention of mature civil social organization in budgetary participation,full budget openness,financial resources,broadness and deepness of participation and multiple ways of participation.Drawing from the successful practices of foreign countries and combining China's realistic national conditions,protecting and realizing Chinese citizens' budgetary participation right is not only necessary,but has certain practical feasibility.Chinese government's gradual transition of governance idea is the key to protecting and realizing citizens' budgetary participation right;citizens' increasingly strengthening participation will is the basis of the protection and realization of citizens' budgetary participation right;constantly improving laws and regulations are the institutional soil for the protection and realization of citizens' budgetary participation right.Therefore,only by further transform government's budget ideas,comprehensively improving citizens' budgetary participation ability,further perfecting relevant laws and regulations and deepening citizens' participation degree,actively expanding channels for citizens' budgetary participation,and practically improving relevant systems of administrative remedy,authority remedy and judicial remedy can Chinese citizens' budgetary participation right be protected and realized.