Five major flashpoints in government work

One year has elapsed since the publication of the "Outline on the Comprehensive Promotion of Administration Exercised According to Law" formulated by the State Council, what the situation is like in which governments and government departments of all levels are pushing forward administration exercised according to law? After enumerating the above five major flashpoints presented in government work, Cao Kangtai, chairman of the Legal Affairs Office of the State Council, made the following assessment: Initial results have been achieved.

"The State Council has successively abolished and adjusted 1,795 items of administrative licensed and non-licensed examination and approval projects, accounting for 48.9 percent of all the examined and approved projects conducted by departments of the State Council; some provincial governments have abolished over 70 percent of administrative licensed and non-licensed examination and approval projects."

At the March 29 forum on implementing the "Outline on the Comprehensive Promotion of Administration Exercised According to Law", Cao said that governments and various government departments at all levels have now further transformed government functions, deepened the reform of administrative management system, reduced a large batch of administrative licensed and non-licensed examination and approval projects, simplified working procedures and created new administrative management methods. The all-round development of this work has laid a certain structural foundation for the implementation of the "Outline on Comprehensive Promotion of Administration Exercised According to Law."

In 2004, after intensifying efforts in investigation and study and extensively listening to the opinions of various types of experts and social circles, the National Development and Reform Commission formed the "Proposal on the Current Situation of Economic Operation and Doing a Good Job of Economic Work in the Second Half of the Year". At present, the governments of many provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government and State Council departments have drawn up measures for spurring implementation of scientific and democratic policy-making, have further improved working rules and, through establishing and instituting systems under which administrative policy decisions on major issues are made through collective discussion, consultation with experts, announcement to the public, holding of hearings, reporting work to the people's congress, conducting follow-up work and making evaluation of policy decisions, investigating and affixing the responsibility for mistake in policy decision, have raised the scientific, democratic and institutional levels of decision-making and effectively reduced the phenomena of policy-making mistake.

In government legislation, the following methods are widely adopted: conducting thorough investigation and study, holding meeting of argumentation and hearings, making public the drafts of administrative rules and regulations and widely soliciting opinions from various social sectors, which resulted in further enhancing public participation in government legislation, increasing the transparency of government legislative work and further improving the quality of systemic construction.

At the same time, most localities and departments continue to carry out the work of relatively concentrated administrative penalty power, conduct comprehensive law-enforcement experiment, strengthen job-training, institute an administrative law-enforcement mainstay qualification system, establish an administrative law-execution responsibility system and a system of investigating and affixing responsibility for mistakes, as a result, administrative law-enforcement level has been further raised.

"The work of administrative reconsideration has been further strengthened, effort has been intensified for putting regulations, rules and standard documents on file for examination." Cao revealed that by the end of 2004, 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities nationwide had, through local legislation, established a system under which standard documents are put on record for examination, thus perfecting the working procedures and working mechanisms of putting files on record for examination and effectively safeguarding legal unity and ensuring the unimpeded implementation of government orders.

By People's Daily Online