A newborn baby to
China, the hearing system has provably worked for the public good:
a provincial hearing in South China's Guangdong Province successfully slashed an increase
in bus ticket prices by 30 percent during the Spring Festival, or
the Chinese lunar new year; college students in Beijing are
guaranteed a hearing if they are expelled for being caught plagiarizing
in examinations; representatives to a hearing on cooking gas prices vetoed
an account totaling three million yuan ($400,000) prepared by the local company in
Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, after they found it was cooked.
Perhaps more important than the
short-term results is the enthusiasm for public affairs generated by the hearing system.
Chinese
have grown gradually more accustomed to speaking out their views at hearings, rather
than stepping back or passively receiving orders from the above, says Prof. Ma.
In April 2005, Yuanmingyuan Garden, the "Old Summer Palace" built in
the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) but plundered by the British and French during
the Second Opium War (1856-1860), made a move that induced an unprecedented hearing.
The previous year,
the administration of the Yuanmingyuan Garden made a bold decision to
spread 133 hectares of plastic films underneath the lakes in the park. They
claimed that the project was intended to prevent water seeping into the earth.
The majority of the public, however, were suspicious that the administration took
the action from ulterior economic interests, risking irreparable havoc on the historic site.
Amid public outrage and doubt, the State Environmental Protection Administration
(SEPA) organized an environmental assessment hearing, the first of its kind in China.
It attracted 73
representatives from all walks of life: a teacher, policeman, lawyer, non-governmental organization (NGO),
public servant and researcher. Most participants opposed the project during the three-hour hearing.
Following further investigations and an
evaluation report by Tsinghua University, SEPA gave a serious warning three months later
to the Yuanmingyuan Garden administration and ordered them to remove the films immediately.
Li Dun, a sociologist from
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, commended the hearing as "a historic milestone
in environmental protection that set a good model for democratic policy-making in China".
The government also realized the unparalleled usefulness of hearings.
Pan
Yue, deputy director of SEPA, dubbed the hearing "a symbol of socialistic democracy".
Aside from its roles in administration and
public-policy making, the hearing system is increasingly used to help map out legislation.
Addressing the National People's Congress (NPC)
in March last year, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao highlighted the importance of setting
up a proper mechanism involving a hearing to promote public participation in legislation.
In September 2005, three NPC special
committees organized a national hearing to discuss the correct income tax
threshold for the Law on Personal Income Tax. Twenty-eight representatives from
18 provinces turned up at the hearing. After a full day's discussion, the
threshold starting point was raised from 800 yuan ($100) to 1,600 yuan ($200).
