Feature: People's Deputies at Grassroots Level

32-year-old Zhang Pin serves as village Party chief and is busy running a brick and tile mill.

But from this year on, he has to find two or three days a month to visit his constituents in capacity of a deputy to his township people's congress elected two years ago.

He is following the directive of people's congress of Gaoxian County of Southwestern Sichuan Province to bring the role of people's deputies to full play and exercise their constitutional rights in full for the interests of the public.

As it happens, Gaoxian country is where chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress or top legislator Li Peng's ancestral home lies and where he lived in his tender age.

"People used to eye me as an official because I'm a village Party chief," he said, noting that "when I approach them as a people's deputy they elected, they take it for granted that I should serve them, and we become rather close."

People's congresses in China have contributed enormously to the rule of law movement, but the role of people's deputies to be played when legislative session ends remain weak.

The people's deputies' visits to households to solicit opinions have been a major creation of mountainous Gaoxian country to counter the problem.

"I used to feel like a people's deputy when the annual congressional session began," Zhang said, adding that "until today, I always reminds myself I'm a people's deputy."

In March and April, more than 1,000 people's deputies at township levels, both directly elected, summarized 72 issues and put forward to county government.

By May 25, all issues were resolved, and results and answers were publicized for all to see.

According to a village billboard, one land management official used to demand an extra fee of 30 yuan for each application for a piece land for building a farm house. After people's deputies filed the complaint, the county land management bureau ordered the official to hand the money back, and to write a written apology for his illegal conduct.

Another people's deputy told the government that a village school was too poor and unsafe for children and had never been paid attention to even if one of the deputy county heads and the education bureau had been repeatedly warned. By now, the county education bureau has agreed to allocate 7,000 yuan for the repair of the school.

"The only ways for us to have our problems solved were seeking help from officials or resorting to our personal connections, even sometime illegal," said Yan Weigang, a villager of Qingfu town in Gaoxian county.

"But today, people's deputies are also helpful," he said. The 43-year-old farmer once confided with a people's deputy who visited him that his farm and feedlot could not make his ends meet because his two children in school cost too much. With the help of the deputy, he got bank loans to expand his feedlot last year. And today, his two-story building was newly equipped with a big- sized color TV.

Liu Yongjiang, director of the county environment protection bureau, said that people's deputies have proved to be a great help to government work, in addition to being a watchdog.

"It is easier today for us to punish polluters, because they know that people's deputies have also advocated us to do so," he said.

The practices of grassroots people's congresses have become an impetus for the development and improvement of China's fundamental political system -- the people's congress system.

Assessing the work of government officials, judges and prosecutors by people's deputies, and looking into judicial cases for supervision have been creations of local people's congresses, and have been affirmed as effective by top lawmaker Li Peng.

In a nearby Gongxian county, people's deputies created a new practice that they deliver annual report to their constituents for review.

"Because of this, no people's deputy has been found to have breached the law or discipline in recent years," said Wang Yuansheng, chairman of presidium of Xunchang township people's congress of Gongxian.

"The creative practices of local people's congress is propelling the wheel of China's legal construction and democratic progress," said Shen Qingwu, vice-chairman of the Yibin Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee, in an interview.



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