The basic-level?contact station?for?legislation at?Hongqiao?Subdistrict in Shanghai Photo: From Xinmin Evening News

 


The National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislative body, said that public consultation on draft laws has become an important channel for ordinary people to participate in the law making  with more than 3800,000 public opinions collected over the past decade.

To keep the channels open and clear for the public to express their opinions, public consultation has been launched in time on draft laws that will be submitted to the NPC for deliberation, said Song Rui, a senior official from the General Office of the NPC Standing Committee, at a press conference on Wednesday.

According to Song, more than 3800,000 comments and suggestions have been collected from more than 1200,000 people on 217 different law drafts over the past 10 years.

Besides the normalization of requesting public opinions on drafts, Song also introduced the promotion of basic-level contact stations for legislation where people can take part in drafting, reviewing, evaluating and debating laws, as well as use the NPC's petitioning system.

"More than 5,500 grassroots-level contact stations for legislation have been set up across two thirds of China's provincial-level regions. A total of 381,800 public visits and letters have been handled since 2018 through face-to-face and online petitioning channels," Song said.

Song said that more than 2.6 million people's congress deputies at county- and township-level have been picked out through one-person-one-vote election by more than 1 billion voters, which is a vivid practice of China's comprehensive-process democracy.

The NPC Standing Committee said that the people's congress system, the fundamental political system in China, has become more mature over the past 10 years with a much improved legal system focusing on major concerns of the Chinese people and government's strategic plans, such as poverty alleviation, anti-pollution and financial risks prevention.