Study On The Phenomenon Of Administrative Dominance In The Enactment Of Local Laws

The revised Legislation law of 2015 clearly stipulates that "the National People's Congress and its standing committee shall strengthen the organization and coordination of the legislation,as a leading role",which indicates that the NPC's leading status in legislation has become a clear legal requirement.People's Congress take the leading and guidance role in the legislation process is not only the basic requirement of the CCP's policy and national laws under the new situation,but also the basic connotation of the People's Congress System and socialist legislative system of China.This requirement should also be fully implemented in the enactment of local laws.However,during the formulation of provincial and prefecture-level municipal regulations,the most of proposals,drafts and bills of local laws come from government and its departments.Administration departments play the main character that actually affects the process and content of local laws,forming the phenomenon of administrative dominance in the enactment of local laws.This phenomenon makes the enactment of local laws depend heavily on government and its departments,affecting the Congresses' leading role and participation of other subjects.It also undermines the authority of the legislature,reduces the democratic degree of local laws.At the same time,government and its departments have an inevitable tendency of maintaining departmental interests when participating in the formulation of local laws,and even transfer improper interests,implement departmental protectionism and local protectionism,which has become a prominent problem in the local legislation.The phenomenon of administrative dominance in the enactment of local laws attributes to many factors.Firstly,government has the advantages of participating in legislation.Under the specific historical background and social development requirements,the government needs to play a strong organizational and coordinating role to ensure development in all aspects of society,complete more legislative tasks.At the same time,the government and its departments have the power to formulate regulations and other regulatory documents,so that the government has accumulated more legislative experience and is more mature in legislation technology with more complete staffing and more financial and material resources.As the manager of public affairs,the government has a large amount of legislative information,and can find the practical requirements and expectations of local laws.Thus,the government will be an expert in legislative experience,technology,information and other legislative conditions,comparing with enterprises,public institutions,social organizations in legislative ability and conditions.Secondly,there exists the idea,'the department who proposes the project is responsible for drafting it' and 'the one who drafts the bill introducing it',in local legislative practice.So,a large number of legislative tasks,even all of them are concentrated in government and its departments.Thirdly,in consider of the department's interests and the distribution of power during the enactment of local laws,government often actively strives to participate in this process.The inadequacy of the legislative ability of local People's Congresses is one of the reasons for the phenomenon of administrative dominance in the enactment of local laws.Local People's Congresses,especially People's Congresses of the municipalities with districts,have been limited in legislative practice because of their young organization structuring and short of experience.At the same time,there are defects in the procedures of local regulation,mainly including the imperfect system of solicitating public proposals of local legislative projects,insufficient argumentation of local legislative projects,unreasonable allocation of rights of introducing bills,and different procedures applied to bills submitted by official and unofficial subjects,which restrict the expression of the will and the initiative of other subjects,cause the power of government in the local legislation lack of balance and restriction.It is necessary to rectify the phenomenon of administrative dominance in the enactment of local laws and also an inevitable requirement and key measure to improve the legislation quality in the new situation.In order to rectify the current phenomenon,it is necessary to emphasize the People's Congress as a leading role in the whole process of the enactment of local regulation,improve the construction of it,give full play on the role of deputies to People's Congress and effectively guarantee the participation of them in the whole process.At the same time,the unreasonable system design in local legislation should be approved during the process of drafting or proposal.First of all,the attention shall be raised at the beginning of local legislative projects collection for getting rid of the phenomenon of administrative dominance.And improving the system of collecting public proposals,expanding the sources of project approval,ensuring public participation,increasing the openness of project approval,and bringing more legislative appeals into the concern of legislators as much as possible should be totally considered.Fully argue of local legislative projects' scientificity;screen and prioritize the project proposals.Review and discuss the project proposals through the argumentation of project approval,so as to bring the truly urgent,important projects that address the public's general demands into the legislative agenda.Secondly,in the drafting of local laws,relative subjects should strengthen the organizational and coordinating role of People's Congress,clarify the power boundaries between it and the government,in the drafting explore model that People's Congress is as the leading role and multi-subjects fully participate,and make up for the shortcomings of People's Congress by entrusting to third parties in this process.Thirdly,the power of introducing bills should be reasonably allocated.Give local courts and procuratorates the power to do it;support NPC special committees and deputies in exercising their right in it.Improve procedures for receiving bills for local laws,and ensure that the relevant special committees of the NPC have enough time to review cases of laws and regulations submitted by unofficial subjects.At the same time,it cannot be ignored that the government,including its departments,is an important participant in the enactment of local laws.As the main management body of public affairs,the government is more likely to find the improper part between laws and the practice,reflect the demands of citizens,in order to have its bills more realistic and target-aimed.It is pretty to give government plenty of room to think how to take advantage of its resources and how to promote its orderly participation in legislation,for preventing the phenomenon of administration-led enactment of local laws.At this point,these measures will be the apparent meaning in paper,that firstly in the formulation of local laws,strengthen the supervision over the participation of government departments,strengthen the organizational and coordinating role of the department of government legislative affair,and ensure the objectivity and neutrality of departments to the greatest extent.Next,improve the system design of legislative,prevent departments from seeking improper interests by the bills they introduce.These problems cannot be solved overnight.It requires the hand of time,which needs to be combined with the refinement of the system and the strict practice.So,it is necessary for local People's Congress to pay attention to use the power in legislation on the substantive level,without rush for improving,to prevent deviation and avoid its leading position in a mere formality.