A Study On Citizen’s Right To Participate In The Budget In China

The operation of the governmental authority cannot work without the the support offinancial resources.The government’s budget affects all aspects of social life, which is of vitalinterests to every citizen and public well-being. Since the beginning of the new era,withcontinued awakening of consciousness of taxpayers and continued efforts made to advancedemocracy and legal construction, the public’s demand to participate in the budget are alsoincreasingly strong..In such a setting both the central government and the local government aretrying to make their own budget public,in order to endow the citizens with the right toparticipate in budget.This article, which attempts to integrate the citizens participation withthe practice of the budget reform, analyzes the connotation and legal property of the citizensbudget participation from the perspective of law, and makes a theoretical analysis and summaryof legal basis for involvement of the citizens budget participation Research on theory must becombined with practice.So based on the study on the citizens budget participation andpractice,some appropriate countermeasures and suggestions are given on how to bettersafeguard the exercise of citizens’ rights to participate in budget.Following these ideas, thisarticle is divided into five sections,----the introduction and the four chapters.The introduction of the article mainly explains the background of writing this article andsignificance of selecting such a topic, sums up and comments on the present situation of studyon citizen participation in budget. Besides, this article also describes research thinking andmethod and explains the innovation and insufficiency.The first chapter is about the meaning and significance of citizen’s right to participate inthe budget. Firstly,this article defines some related concepts of citizen’s right to participate inthe budget, believing that citizen participation is an institutionalized implementation ofdemocracy. To be more specific,this chapter first makes analysis of the connotation ofbudgetary and legal nature, and the significance and meaning of the right of citizens toparticipate in budget. Then it makes a more detailed analysis of the meaning and content of thecitizen’s right to participate in the budget. Finally it sums up and discusses about the positivesignificance of citizen’s right to participate in the Budget, believing that citizens rights toparticipate in budget is a form of democracy politics and key to the restriction of State authority.The second chapter explains the legal basis for the right to participate in the budget bycitizens based on the analysis of the basic theory of citizen’s right to participate in the budgetand summarizes the legal system basis for the citizen’s right to participate in the budget. As forthe Legal basis for citizens rights to participate in budget,this article mainly explains fromthree aspects: modern democratic theory, the theory of public finance and the theory ofpopular sovereignty.The Modern theory of democracy is a set of democracy theorydeveloping from the imperfection existing in western countries in the reflections onrepresentative democracy. Modern democratic theory puts stress on consultation and directinvolvement. Reflected in the government budget the right of citizen participation in budget isemphasized. The nature of public finance is the publicity, which determines the demand forcitizen participation in budget.The theory of people’s sovereign provides direct theoreticalbasis for citizen participation in budget. As for the basis of legal system for citizen’s right toparticipate in the budget, it mainly refers to the legal system based on the relevant provisionsof the Constitution, including specific budget laws, normative documents and internationallaw.The third chapter explores the Xinhe and Jiaozuo mode in which citizens participates inbudget in China’s social practice, by using examples of Law and the Empirical LawSociety,introduces and sums up the two types of representative participation practices andexperiences.At the same time, this chapter sums up the insufficiency or challenges existing incitizen participation and in the local government budgets in China through these two modes.The fourth chapter makes a study on how to grant participatory budget right to citizensand to enable the right really to achieve.Besides, this chapter also puts forward thecorresponding countermeasures from three aspects: Law, technology and procedures. In termsof legal protection, a correct concept of budget legislation should be established and the legalsystem of budgeting based on the relevant norms of the Constitution should be perfected andestablished, which provides a solid legal basis for the realization of the citizens right toparticipate in budget. As for the technical guarantee for citizen participation in budget,this articlemainly explains report system and hearing system and finally elaborates procedural guaranteefor the citizen’s right to participate in the budget. The entire budget process generally includes budgeting, budget performance and budget supervision. The right to participate in the budgetshould be implemented in the whole process of budget and reflected in the three stages andacted out in a appropriate way.