Immigration Committee hearing

Legislative hearing system refers to a system in which the legislature invites relevant government departments, experts and scholars, interested parties and citizens to state their opinions in order to collect and obtain information related to legislation in the legislative process, so as to provide basis and reference for the legislature to consider laws and regulations.

The legal basis of hearing system can be traced back to the idea and system of citizens' right to legal protection in British Magna Carta 12 15. The amendment to the federal constitution of the United States stipulates that no one can be deprived of life, freedom or property without due process of law. In the specific understanding of "due process of law", the hearing system is interpreted as one of the important systems of due process of law, and it is a part or a link of due process of law. Due process hearing was originally only applicable to judicial trials, that is to say, a hearing must be held during the trial of a case. This hearing system is called "judicial hearing". Later, this system spread from Britain to the United States, and the United States transplanted it into legislation and administration as the main method to increase the democratization of legislation and administration and the relevant authorities to obtain information. After World War II, the legislative hearing system spread to Japan and some Latin American countries greatly influenced by the United States. There are two main reasons why some western countries adopt the legislative hearing system. First, with the development of science and technology, the fields of environmental protection, urban management, immigration, traffic safety, intellectual property rights, crime and its prevention are becoming more and more professional and technical. As legislators, it is difficult for them to put forward targeted opinions on the issue. Therefore, inviting relevant experts to participate in the hearing before legislation, stating their views on a certain bill and providing scientific suggestions for legislators has become a major content of the legislative hearing. Second, with the complexity of social relations, different interest groups have formed. For example, entrepreneurs and trade unions in enterprises; Creditors of enterprises, banks and bankrupt enterprises in bankruptcy cases; Consumers in consumer rights protection cases and so on. These interest groups all have their own special interests. In the process of making relevant laws, the interests of relevant groups are often contradictory. Therefore, it is also essential to listen to the opinions of these different interest groups at the legislative hearing.

For the first time, China's law stipulated that the hearing system was an administrative punishment law adopted at the Fourth Session of the Eighth National People's Congress in March 1996. Later, the price law passed by 1997 also stipulated the contents of the hearing and established the hearing system. The implementation of the provisions of the Administrative Punishment Law and the Price Law on hearing has achieved good results in promoting the openness and democratization of administrative actions and reducing administrative deviations. The Legislative Law summarizes the practical experience of administrative hearing and introduces the hearing system into the legislative process. At present, 19 provincial and municipal people's congress standing committees have held legislative hearings, and 17 provincial and municipal people's congress standing committees have formulated legislative hearing rules, forming a relatively perfect hearing system. Practice has proved that the legislative hearing system is an effective way to promote the democratization and scientificization of legislation, and this system should be actively standardized and improved to promote the democratization and scientificization of the legislative hearing system.

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Legislative hearing is different from legislative argumentation. Legislative argumentation is to invite relevant experts to study the professional and technical issues in the bill from the perspective of science and feasibility and put forward argumentation opinions. The legislative argumentation system is mainly used to solve the scientific problems of legislation, while the legislative hearing system is mainly used to solve the democratic problems of legislation. The basic characteristics of legislative hearing are: first, high transparency. The time, place and content of the hearing are generally announced to the public in advance, allowing citizens to sign up for the hearing, allowing citizens to attend, and being reported by the news media. Second, it has certain selectivity. The legislative law stipulates that the hearing can take the form of listening to opinions. It is neither a necessary form nor the only one that can be taken. In other words, in the process of formulating laws and regulations, legislative hearings may or may not be held, mainly depending on the contents of the bill. The third is fairness and objectivity. Participants in the hearing are representatives of different opinions. They can express their opinions truthfully according to their own wishes and are not influenced by others, provided that they are responsible for the law. In this way, the situation and opinions reflected through the hearing will be more objective and fair. Fourth, it is procedural. The legislative hearing procedure is different from the general working procedure and has certain legitimacy. Before the hearing, it is generally necessary to formulate hearing rules, stipulate the composition and rights of hearing participants and observers, stipulate the contents, methods and hearing reports of the hearing, and ensure that the hearing is conducted in an orderly manner according to law.

The establishment of legislative hearing system and the promotion of legislative democratization have three main functions: First, it can fully reflect people's feelings. With the implementation of the legislative hearing system, the public can directly state their opinions on the necessity and feasibility of legislation and related issues involved in legislation, reflecting the situation and problems, so that the legislature can directly, extensively and deeply understand the actual situation of legislation and the problems that need to be solved, especially the difficulties and problems that the masses urgently demand to solve. Second, it can fully reflect public opinion. China's socialist legislation is to protect people's long-term interests and fundamental interests, so legislation must fully reflect public opinion and protect the public's right to express their opinions on legislation. Such legislation can not only give consideration to democracy, improve legislative efficiency, but also prevent the biased absence of legislation, thus ensuring the rationality and feasibility of laws and regulations. Third, it can gather the wisdom of the people. With the implementation of the legislative hearing system, we can listen to opinions from all sides, especially the opinions of stakeholders and related industries involved in the contents of laws and regulations. This is conducive to the legislature to widely concentrate the wisdom of the people, absorb all kinds of good opinions and suggestions into laws and regulations, and turn them into legislative achievements.

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How to standardize the legislative hearing system, the legislative law has made corresponding provisions. But the rules and clear operating procedures that people are required to abide by are relatively general. Combined with the preliminary practice of hearing work carried out by some provincial and municipal people's congress standing committees, the author believes that the legislative hearing system should also include the following aspects.

(1) On the theme of legislative hearing. According to the provisions of Article 34 of the Legislative Law, the main body of the legislative hearing is the Legislative Affairs Committee of the People's Congress, the relevant special committees and the working bodies of the Standing Committee. However, in the operation of this regulation, there are still some problems that need further discussion and clarification. Generally speaking, the legislative hearing is held according to the needs of the deliberation of the regulations, so the theme of the hearing should be consistent with the theme of the deliberation of the regulations. The relevant special committees or working bodies of the Standing Committee may organize hearings as needed; When the Legal Committee deliberates in a unified way, it may also organize a hearing as needed.

(2) About the object of legislative hearing. The object of the legislative hearing must be the draft regulations that have been included in the agenda of NPC and its Standing Committee. Because the main body of the legislative hearing is the Legal Committee, the relevant special committees and the working bodies of the Standing Committee, only the draft regulations formally included in the deliberation of the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee can become the object of the legislative hearing.

(three) on the way of legislative hearing. This is a problem that needs to be studied emphatically. The current practice is to hold legislative hearings. When some provincial and municipal people's congress standing committees held legislative hearings, they mainly did the following work: First, they formulated hearing rules. To make provisions on the number of participants, speech order, speech content, speech time, moderator, recorder and venue discipline of the legislative hearing. If the hearing rules are institutionalized, it is not necessary to consider the rules every time. The second is to determine the draft regulations and hearing topics of the hearing. Generally speaking, the draft regulations of hearing refers to the draft regulations that involve a wide range, are related to the interests of the people, are generally concerned by the public, and have certain debatable contents. The topic of the hearing is proposed by the hearing subject and must be studied and agreed by the director's meeting. The third is to issue a notice. Notice is often published in newspapers and periodicals for citizens to sign up. In addition, participants in the hearing can also be selected by holding a forum. That is, several symposiums were held before the hearing, and interested people or a considerable number of people with different views were selected as participants in the hearing. The fourth is to closely organize the hearing. The procedural arrangement of the hearing is roughly as follows: ① The clerk reads out the rules of the venue or the rules of the hearing; (two) the host introduced the basic contents of the motion, the meeting procedures, the hearing personnel, and announced the order of speech; 3. the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC)'s leadership speech; (4) the participants in the hearing speak; ⑤ The host makes a summary and announces the end of the hearing. In these processes, except for the hearing participants, the rest of the procedures are very short, and most of the hearing time is reserved for the hearing participants to speak. In the process of hearing, it is generally appropriate to conduct a hearing one by one, and it is not appropriate to cross; The speeches of the participants in the hearing shall be recorded accurately and completely; The moderator is only responsible for listening to opinions and generally does not directly participate in discussions and debates; Discussions and debates are only held among the participants in the hearing; Allow the news media to cover and report.

(four) to summarize the opinions and suggestions of the legislative hearing. Seriously combing and absorbing the opinions and suggestions of the legislative hearing is the fundamental purpose and final destination of the legislative hearing. After the hearing, the hearing record shall be compiled into a hearing report and issued to the members of the Standing Committee as a reference for deliberation of the draft regulations. The hearing report shall comprehensively and accurately reflect the basic viewpoints and main controversial issues of the participants in the hearing. In the process of adopting and absorbing the opinions of the participants in the hearing, the specific practice of some provincial and municipal people's congress standing committees is that when a special committee or the working body of the standing committee holds a legislative hearing, in addition to summarizing the opinions and suggestions of the hearing into a report, it also puts forward the adopted preliminary opinions and submits them to the Legal Affairs Committee, which will submit them to the meeting of directors for discussion and decision. For the legislative hearing held by the Legal Committee, the Legal Committee will submit the handling opinions to the meeting of directors for discussion and decision. The ways to deal with the opinions put forward by the participants in the hearing are as follows: adopting fully justified and mature opinions; Absorb the reasonable part and spirit of principled opinions; The opinions that have not been absorbed shall be explained and explained to the sponsor to obtain his understanding and consent. In addition, not every bill has a legislative hearing, only when the bill involves the vital interests of citizens and it is necessary to have a hearing.