In order to prevent public hearings from becoming a farce, the city of Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, enacted trial regulations to ensure more fairness and justice at public hearings, which are organized when local residents have major disagreements on important city issues.
According to the trial regulations, all representatives at public hearings will be chosen from local residents older than 18, or older than 16 if involving the legal rights and interests of minors. Media will be invited to cover the hearings. But, government officials and civil servants will no longer be able to be selected as representatives for public hearings.
The regulations took effect on September 1, 2011, which soon sparked debate on whether it is appropriate to exclude government officials and civil servants from public hearings.
Supporters think banning government officials and civil servants from hearings is good, as government officials and civil servants would always support the government’s policy during hearings. What’s more, civil servants or government officials have many other channels for expressing their opinions on major city issues and don’t necessarily need public hearings. Therefore, Banning them is a good attempt by the Guangzhou Municipal Government.
On the other hand, opponents think government officials and civil servants are also citizens, and they are entitled to express their opinions in public hearings. Banning them from public hearings is infringing their legal rights. Besides, the true problem of China’s public hearing system doesn’t lie in whether civil servants should be chosen as representatives, but in its inherent loopholes.
Good Attempt
Lin Qi (news.xinhuanet.com): The trial
regulations are designed to solicit more pub- lic opinion from common citizens. Banning civil servants from public hearings is a good attempt from the local government.
Before making big administrative decisions the government should always collect information from all departments. So, officials and civil servants already have many channels to express their opinions toward major city issues and don’t necessarily need to do that in public hearings. In comparison, common citizens have very limited channels to express their opinions on government decisions.
By implementing the new trial regulations, the Guangzhou government hopes to hear more opinions from non-government people who can better represent the wider public.
On the other hand, most administrative decisions are made by government departments, which would more or less touch the benefits of civil servants who work in those departments. Thus, keeping civil servants out
of public hearings would help to improve the fairness and justice of public hearings.
Fu Ruisheng (Qianjiang Evening News): Banning civil servants from public hearings is a huge progress of China’s public hearing system. Since more and more public hearings are being questioned for their lack of justice and fairness, Guangzhou’s new trial regulations are a good attempt.
First, many hearings are often criticized as “price hike hearings.” The focus of public criticism is the non-transparent procedure of selecting representatives and the composition of representatives. For instance, an old lady named Hu Litian is known as “a public hearing professional.”During the past seven years, she was chosen as a representative 23 times. Hu explained that she was chosen at a very high rate because very few Chinese would sign up for hearings due to their lack of trust in the system. If it is not paid enough attention, the public hearing system will die eventually. Therefore, the Guangzhou Municipal Government has made great efforts to improve it, starting from banning civil servants, who are usually supporters of all government decisions, from public hearings.
One major principle of hearings is “not letting one be the judge of one’s own case.”From my point of view, banning civil servants from public hearings is in accordance with the spirit of this principle. I
nappropriate Measure
Liu Yi (www.cnr.cn): Civil servants’legal rights will be infringed if they are not allowed to attend the city’s public hearings. Civil servants are also residents of Guangzhou and they have the right to voice their opinions on the city’s major issues.
In my opinion, those civil servants who work in relevant government departments that make administrative decisions shouldn’t be allowed to be representatives of public hearings, but other civil servants can’t be banned from them.
Compared with ordinary citizens, civil servants have more information available about the issues of the city. Letting civil servants participate in public hearings is better for efficient expression of public opinions.
Wang Xuyang (news.sohu.com): It is not important whether representatives at public hearings are civil servants or not, if the government takes effective measures to ensure all representatives are chosen openly and fairly and they can express their opinions freely during public hearings.
Therefore, the key to preventing public hearings from becoming a simple show lies in improving its system rather than in banning civil servants. It’s useless to ban them if the system has flaws.
Fu Wanfu (Shanxi Evening News): Emphasizing the background of representatives at public hearings is a misunderstanding of the public hearing system. They still haven’t realized the core reason for the problem of today’s public hearings. They still think the problem of China’s public hearings lies in their representatives and that hearings are just a complementary channel for expressing public opinion. Banning civil servants from hearings has no significance in developing the system but will let public hearings go to a dead end.
We should ban all desires for economic benefits hidden in public hearings and let it be an open debate for all parties. As long as public hearings are held in a fair environment, it’s not important who is chosen representatives in public hearings.
Besides, even if civil servants are really banned from attending public hearings, can’t other representatives be bought over? If civil servants can express their true opinions freely, they should be allowed to be representatives in hearings.
Yi Yangang (Xinhua Daily Telegraph): Many public hearings are harshly criticized. There are three reasons behind it—First, some of them are like a show, which ends within several minutes without full discussion and debate; Second, the procedure of selecting representatives is neither fair nor transparent, and some people are “professional hearing representatives” who always say yes to government decisions; Finally, almost all hearings end up with a price hike on some service and have lost the significance of debate and negotiation.
From my point of view, it’s not necessary to ban all civil servants from public hearings. First, speaking from the law, civil servants are all ordinary citizens who are entitled to all rights given by the Constitution and other laws. Their legal rights can’t be infringed. They should enjoy the right to express their opinions and put up with suggestions in issues they care about after they have voluntarily signed up for the hearings and have been chosen to be representatives openly and fairly.
For instance, the law on price hearings says that participants for the hearings should comprise consumers, business leaders, experts in the field, social organizations and staff from government departments that the price control department thinks should be involved. In other words, a legal price hearing shouldn’t exclude civil servants but should have civil servants from relevant departments to ensure an open forum and an open debate for all concerned parties. It’s the same for other kinds of public hearings.
In the past, civil servants were overrepresented at public hearings. But the solution should be improving the system to select representatives openly and fairly. We shouldn’t go from one extreme to another and ban civil servants simply.
We have to be aware that regaining people’s trust in the hearing system is a complicated project, which can’t be ac- complished by simply excluding one kind of people. On the contrary, organizers for public hearings should do their best to ensure all classes and groups have their “spokespersons” at hearings.
Instead of excluding civil servants, the only way to regain people’s trust in public hearings is ensuring fairness, openness and justice during the entire process of public hearings. Improvements have to be made to the system of selecting representatives, the negotiation of public hearings and the manner in which final results are announced.