Using five procedures to ensure scientific and democratic major administrative decisions
Decision-making is the starting point of administrative behavior, and standardizing decision-making behavior is the focus of standardizing administrative power and the front end of building a government ruled by law. Whether the administrative organs can make decisions according to law directly reflects the level of their administration according to law, directly determines the comprehensive and correct performance of government functions, and directly relates to the realization of the basic goal of building a government ruled by law in 2020.
Over the years, in the process of promoting administration according to law, administrative organs at all levels have accumulated a lot of good experiences and good practices in making decisions according to law, and the level of legalization of decision-making has been continuously improved. However, there is insufficient respect for objective laws in decision-making, insufficient listening to the opinions of the masses, and serious problems such as arbitrary decision-making, illegal decision-making, arbitrary decision-making, and decision-making without decision-making, which have harmed national interests, infringed on the rights and interests of the masses and affected the image of the party and government. In order to further promote administration according to law and speed up the construction of a government ruled by law, it is urgent to improve the decision-making mechanism according to law, introduce a unified system of major administrative decision-making procedures, clarify major administrative decision-making matters, subjects, authorities, procedures and responsibilities, make efforts to promote the rule of law in key areas such as major reforms, major planning, major people’s livelihood, major government investments and construction projects, regulate decision-making behavior with scientific and rigid decision-making system constraints, effectively improve decision-making quality, strive to control decision-making risks, and promptly correct illegal and improper decisions.
At the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, it was put forward that "public participation, expert argumentation, risk assessment, legality review, and collective discussion decisions should be determined as legal procedures for major administrative decisions", which is a clear requirement for improving the main contents of the decision-making mechanism according to law. It is necessary to formulate laws and regulations on major administrative decision-making procedures, clearly standardize the key contents and steps of the five procedures, and bring major administrative decisions into the track of rule of law.
Public participation. Public participation is an important embodiment of democratic decision-making, and it is also the most direct and close decision-making procedure with the masses. The more solid, detailed and thorough the public participation in decision-making, the more solid the social foundation of decision-making, and the more conducive to the implementation and implementation after the decision. It is necessary to grasp the demands of the public "I want to participate" and the limits of the administrative organs "I can do it", and adhere to "limited matters, various ways, well-founded adoption and active promotion". "Limited matters" means to listen to the opinions of the public, especially interested parties, in a variety of ways for major livelihood decisions or matters involving the vital interests of the public. By "various ways", we can go deep into the grassroots and get close to the masses by means of forums, public solicitation of opinions, hearings, questionnaires, field visits, etc., and fully understand the opinions and suggestions of various groups whose vital interests are affected, especially the vulnerable groups. "Evidence-based adoption" means to take public opinions as an important reference for decision-making, carefully study public opinions and make follow-up treatment, fully adopt reasonable opinions, effectively solve legal demands, strengthen research and argumentation, negotiate and coordinate repeatedly on issues with major differences, and give timely public feedback on the adoption and reasons of public opinions and the government’s opinions and considerations, so that even if the final decision cannot satisfy everyone, most people can accept it with relief. "Actively promoting" means first of all, doing the "prescribed actions" required by laws and regulations, never "going through the motions" and actively creating conditions.Boldly try to use Weibo, WeChat and other innovative ways to promote public participation.
Expert argumentation. Expert argumentation is an important embodiment of scientific decision-making Scientific decision-making does not require the staff of administrative organs to become scientists and experts who know everything, but to have basic scientific thinking, know how to hand over professional and technical problems to experts, be good at organizing experts to conduct scientific argumentation and evaluation, respect expert opinions, and put an end to patting their heads and making decisions by feeling, or making decisions based on personal experience limited to one thing at a time. To do a good job of expert argumentation, we must "select experts, use experts well and treat experts well". "Selecting experts" means perfecting the expert selection mechanism, breaking the "hidden rules" of choosing obedient experts who only say "yes" and "good", and truly taking professional ability, qualification, experience and integrity as the main selection criteria. "Make good use of experts" means to provide necessary support for argumentation, so that experts can carry out argumentation work on the basis of fully understanding information such as policy background and decision-making objectives; Establish an open system of expert argumentation, and urge them to put forward their argumentation opinions objectively, independently, scientifically and responsibly through an open mechanism. "Treating experts well" means providing proper courtesy and reasonable remuneration, and giving appropriate incentives; Take the argument seriously and feed back the adoption to show full respect.
Risk assessment. In the world, there are no things that are harmful but not beneficial, and in reality, there are no decisions that are beneficial but not risky. Taking risk assessment as the legal procedure of decision-making is an important measure to prevent decision-making risks and reduce decision-making mistakes, which can ensure that decision-makers make decisions on the basis of a comprehensive and clear understanding of the negative effects of decision-making. China’s decision-making risk assessment is still in its infancy, and there are some problems, such as unprofessional and neutral evaluation institutions, imperfect evaluation mechanism and opaque evaluation process. To carry out decision-making risk assessment, it is necessary to achieve "comprehensive evaluation, comprehensive evaluation and controllable risk". "Assessment should be done" means that major decision-making matters should be investigated for major risk sources and points. If it is found that there are risks such as social stability, environment and economy after investigation, risk assessment should be conducted in accordance with regulations to assess the possible adverse effects caused by the implementation of the decision, as well as the rationality, feasibility and controllability of the decision-making scheme. No decision shall be made if the risk assessment should be carried out without assessment. "Comprehensive evaluation" means to weigh and comprehensively judge by many parties, comprehensively search for risk sources and risk points through public opinion tracking, sampling survey, key interviews, consultation and analysis, scientifically predict and comprehensively judge the risks that may be caused by decision-making, determine the risk level realistically, and put forward risk prevention measures and solutions in a targeted manner. "Controllable risk" means to take the conclusion of risk assessment as an important basis for decision-making, and whether the risk is controllable as an important criterion for decision-making, so as to ensure prudent decision-making on the basis of overall consideration, and not to ignore the risk and make decisions indiscriminately.You can’t be swayed by considerations of loss and dare not make decisions. In the process of decision-making, if it is assessed that most people have opinions and strong reactions, which may lead to large-scale mass incidents, they should make a decision not to implement it according to the situation, or adjust the decision-making plan and reduce the risk level before making a decision. If it is considered that the risk can be controlled and a decision can be made, we should also seize the opportunity to implement the responsibilities and measures for risk prevention and resolution before the decision.
Legitimacy review. Legitimacy review is an important guarantee for decision-making according to law. With the gradual establishment of the concept of decision-making according to law, it has become a common practice in decision-making practice in various regions and departments to entrust legal institutions with the legality review of policy and measure decisions such as issuing normative documents and government concluding contracts. However, there are also some problems, such as: the scope of the items under review is limited and has not covered all areas of government decision-making; The review power and ability of legal institutions are still relatively weak, and they cannot undertake more review tasks; The censorship is still not strict, and in many cases, we can only "open the way" and not let "set up checkpoints". Taking the legality review as the legal procedure of decision-making, the legal institution is required to comprehensively review the legal issues involved in decision-making from the following aspects, and put forward the review opinions: First, whether the decision-making matters are well-founded in the law, and if it is considered that they are not within the statutory authority of the decision-making organ after review, it is suggested not to make a decision or to submit them to the competent authority for examination and approval and authorization according to the regulations. Second, whether the decision-making procedure is performed according to law, if the legal procedure is not performed or the performance procedure does not meet the requirements, it is recommended to make corrections or re-perform the relevant procedures. The third is whether the decision-making content is in compliance with the law. If it is considered that the decision-making plan, alternative plan or risk prevention and resolution measures are not in compliance with relevant laws, regulations, rules and national policies, it is recommended to make amendments. Without the legality review or the review is illegal, it shall not be submitted to the meeting for discussion.
Collective discussion and decision. Collective discussion and decision-making is an important part of democratic decision-making. The organic laws of local people’s congresses and local people’s governments at various levels stipulate that major issues in government work must be discussed and decided by the executive meeting or plenary meeting of the government. It can be seen that collective discussion and decision-making is a necessary institutional form to implement the chief executive responsibility system, and no decision can be made on major decision-making matters without collective discussion. The purpose of collective discussion is to help executive heads better understand the situation, brainstorm and make decisions. In practice, it has become a common practice for most administrative organs to hold collective discussions before making major decisions. Adhere to the collective discussion and decision, and require the administrative organs to do the following: First, the form of deliberation conforms to the law. Major administrative decisions shall be discussed and decided by the executive meeting of the government, the plenary meeting or the meeting of the leading group of the department. Second, the deliberation process fully promotes democracy. The deliberation process cannot be a "nodding meeting" for the members of the meeting and a "centralized statement" for the chief executive. The organizer shall introduce the decision-making plan and its legal, regulatory and policy basis, the relevant information about the implementation of the legal procedures for decision-making, the different opinions put forward by various parties and the research and handling situation, etc., and the members of the meeting shall fully express their opinions. The opinions, discussions and decisions of the chief executive and other members of the meeting shall be truthfully recorded.
(The author is the deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council)
(ZiguanggemagazineAuthorized People’s Daily Online-the Communist Party of China (CPC) Press Release, please do not reprint.)
