Practical Exploration And Mechanism Improvement Of Grassroots Legislative Contact Point

People’s democracy in its entirety is the essential attribute of socialist democracy.The system of people’s congresses is an important vehicle for realising full process people’s democracy.Legislation is one of the core functions of the People’s Congress.Grass-roots legislative contact points are a new initiative for the NPC’s legislative work to continuously open up new horizons and enhance legislative techniques and levels.They are the theoretical starting point and vivid practice of people’s democracy in the whole process,responding to the target requirements of scientific,democratic and lawful legislation,and playing an important role in improving the quality of legislation and promoting the refinement of legislation.Grass-roots legislative contact points are permanent platforms for the public to directly participate in the legislative process and put forward their legislative opinions and suggestions,set up by the National People’s Congress(NPC)and its Standing Committee,and local people’s congresses and standing committees at all levels,relying on grass-roots party and government organs,enterprises and public institutions,people’s organizations,street communities and social organizations.After more than two decades of exploration,a three-tier working system has initially been formed at the national,provincial and municipality(autonomous prefecture)levels.The grass-roots legislative contact points have been able to reach out to the grassroots level to check public sentiment and to transmit public opinion directly upwards,truly realising "democracy downwards" and "legislation directly",and have accumulated useful experience in practice.As the grassroots legislative contact point itself is a new thing,the quality of practice varies from place to place,and some problems have emerged in its operation,which to a certain extent restricts the function and practical effect of the grassroots legislative contact point.Specifically,first,the layout and organizational structure of the contact points are unreasonable.In the setting of the contact point,regional differences are obvious,the regional distribution,industry distribution,uneven distribution of the hierarchy,the work rules formulated by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in various places are not standardized,and the internal and external organizational structure of the contact point is unreasonable.Secondly,the working mechanism of contact points is not sound.The scope of the function of the contact point is narrow,the feedback mechanism for the adoption of public opinion is not smooth,and the assessment and incentive mechanism is lacking.The third is the superficiality of the contact point’s work effectiveness.Mainly,the main role of the NPC deputies in the contact point has not been effectively played,and the team building of the contact point has yet to be strengthened.In this regard,on the basis of summarizing the practical experience of grassroots legislative contact points and systematic thinking,the following targeted suggestions are put forward for improvement:firstly,the work layout of the contact points should be optimized,focusing on the actual scientific layout,giving play to local characteristics and formulating standardized work rules;secondly,the organizational structure of the contact points should be reasonably determined;thirdly,the work mechanism of the contact points should be improved,broadening the work functions of the contact points,facilitating the adoption of public opinion The fourth is to enhance the motivation and sense of responsibility of the contact point staff,specifically,one is to clarify the role of the NPC deputies,and the second is to strengthen the team building of the contact point.The NPC deputies are the indispensable main body for building good grassroots legislative contact points,so they should effectively play the core strength of the NPC deputies,improve the mechanism of NPC deputies’ participation in legislation,promote the construction of NPC deputies’ "homes,stations and points".The workforce of the contact point is the key to ensure the normal operation of the contact point.It is important to keep growing and improving the quality of the staff,so as to increase the participation of the public and social awareness of the contact points.This paper is a pioneering and systematic study of grassroots legislative contact points.By examining the practice of grassroots legislative contact points,it affirms the effectiveness of their construction,reviews the shortcomings of their construction,and proposes practical and feasible optimisation solutions,with a view to opening up the last joints of democratic legislation,better improving the working mechanism of grassroots legislative contact points,and enriching and developing the political advantages of whole-process people’s democracy.