Citizens Invited to Audit Legislature in E. China Province

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, August 31, 2003

Citizens Invited to Audit Legislature in E. China Province

Fifteen ordinary citizens were invited for the first time to audit the process of the standing committee of Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress Friday.

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Fifteen ordinary citizens were invited for the first time to audit the process of the standing committee of Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress Friday.

It was a new move for the coastal province to let ordinary people have a glimpse of the working of its legislature, local officials said.

"This has provided a new channel for ordinary people to participate in politics," said Fu Songshu, director of the general office of the provincial legislature.

Fu said inviting ordinary citizens to audit the operation of the provincial legislature would become a regular practice in the near future.

However, the auditors were only able to watch from behind a glass panel as Governor Lu Zhushan delivered a report to the congress' standing committee on the province's economic performance in the first half of this year.

The auditors included engineers, company managers, private entrepreneurs, a jobless man, lawyers, workers, public servants and university students.

"I had never expected to observe personally the work of the standing committee," said Jin Deyi, manager of a Hangzhou-based transport company.

Jin said that he was interested in the congress' report on its inspection of the implementation of the labor law.

"I didn't just listen to the report and keep silent," said 55-year-old Zhou Nancheng, the jobless man, who said that he would submit a suggestion on unemployment insurance to the congress.

Any Chinese adult who has been a resident of Zhejiang for more than one year can apply to audit the provincial legislature's meetings, according to a recent ruling by the provincial congress.

This brings to 20 the total of provincial-level legislatures practicing this system of auditing.

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