Editorials
Public involvement
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-02 07:53
We are so accustomed to public hearings becoming pretentious shows till a pleasant surprise popped up in the form of major policy changes in Hunan's local law-making agenda.
Seven of the 48 law-making tasks on the local legislature's agenda for 2009 were reportedly proposed directly by the public. Such a proportion, around one-seventh, is not high. But we see an inspiring start - civic participation in the local law-making process.
Making laws entails more than just common sense or strong feelings about everyday happenings. It calls for competence and expertise from members of our legislatures.
Yet professional expertise is no excuse to exclude the public from law-making. At the very least, inputs from the communities to be affected may offer invaluable enlightenment to our lawmakers at various levels. We are not unfamiliar with complaints from delegates to the national and local people's congresses that they are too busy to attend to issues of public concern. Sometimes when they do have the time for what they are supposed to do, should things be done "formally", they get processed messages that, at best, reflect half-truths.
We appreciate what Hunan province's legal affairs authorities reportedly said at a recent hearing on their law-making agenda for 2010: The idea is to listen more to those who tell the truth, particularly those with different opinions.
We are not sure how they reacted to those who told the truth. Given the sometimes unpopularity of honesty and uprightness in officialdom, we only hope they do not drift too far from their ear-pleasing words.
Some officials are big fans of flattery and pompous rhetoric. So much so that many are actually afraid of, if not abhor, whistleblowers. Soliciting opinions from the general public, however, entails the courage to listen to various opinions, unless the so-called public hearing is yet another show staged to fool the people.
Since they have kick-started a worthy experiment on popular participation, we hope the authorities in Hunan keep the momentum after the initial media frenzy, and live up to their promise.
Besides immediate gains in public relations, which are handy but short-lived, they will garner much more from genuine public involvement for making local laws. Making good laws is an integral aspect of good governance. At the very least, rules of popular endorsement have a better chance of being respected in the real world.
Our advice to the hearing organizers: Beware how you compose the hearings so that they truly live up to their good name.
(China Daily 12/02/2009 page8)
