How does the Chinese Communist Party govern the country?

Chapter 26

According to the provisions of the Constitution, villagers' committees are self-governing mass organizations at the grassroots level, so their nature, function and mode of operation should be different from those of the original production brigades.However, after the establishment of the village committee, it is impossible for the Constitution to make specific provisions on how it should carry out its work, how it should play its role in self-government, and what kind of relationship it has with the township government.

Therefore, with the widespread establishment of village committees, it is very necessary to formulate a nationwide village committee regulations or rules.

Beginning in the first half of 1984, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which is in charge of building grassroots democracy across the country, started this work and began drafting the "Regulations on the Organization of Villagers' Committees (Draft)."In August of the same year, a draft of the Bill was written.On the basis of repeated solicitation of opinions and multiple revisions, in March 8, the "Regulations on the Organization of Villagers' Committees (Draft)" was submitted to the Fifth Session of the Sixth National People's Congress for deliberation.Given that villagers' self-government involves 1987 million farmers, the "Regulations on the Organization of Villagers' Committees" will be an extremely important basic law of the country. The Standing Committee of the National People's more authoritative.On April 3 of this year, the General Assembly voted, with 8 votes in favor, 4 votes against, and 11 abstentions. In principle, with reference to the opinions put forward by the representatives during the deliberation of the General Assembly, further investigation and research, summing up experience, deliberation and revision, promulgated for trial implementation.

Subsequently, the relevant departments organized personnel many times to conduct research on the issue of villagers' self-government across the country and solicit opinions from the masses on the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial Implementation). At the end of August, the Legal Work Committee of the National People's Congress wrote a revised version of the Organic Law of the Villagers' Committee (Trial) based on opinions from various parties, and was printed by the General Office of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress to all members of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and all provinces, cities, and municipalities. The Standing Committee of the People's Congress of the Autonomous Region solicited opinions. At the end of October and the beginning of November, the Law Committee of the National People's Congress held two special meetings to discuss the revision of the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial).On November 8 of the same year, the No.10 Third Session of the Sixth National People's Congress passed the Organic Law of the Village Committees of the People's Republic of China (Trial).

The Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial) is not long, with only 21 articles and less than 2000 characters, but it is an important document in the history of grassroots democracy in China and a milestone event in the history of village self-government. The promulgation of the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial) marks a new step in the construction of villagers' committees in the direction of institutionalization and legalization.

The Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial) stipulates the nature and responsibilities of villagers' committees, and it positions villagers' committees as "a self-governing, self-educating, self-serving grassroots mass self-governing organization for villagers".That is to say, the villagers' committee is not a first-level political organization and administrative organization, nor is it the "leg" of the government at the lowest level in rural China.This regulation reflects the strong desire of farmers who have gained economic autonomy through the implementation of household contracting to enjoy fuller democratic rights politically, and grants farmers extensive autonomy rights in the form of national law.

The Organic Law of the Villagers' Committee is a law related to the democratic rights of millions of farmers. It naturally attracts the attention and welcome of farmers, and farmers in many places consciously use it as a weapon to protect their rights.

Liangjia Village, Jingxing County, Hebei Province is a well-known poor village.The folk song circulating here, "The mountains are good, the water is good, the air is good, I can only see my brother but not my sister-in-law", vividly reflects the poverty of this village.The cadres in this village belong to the kind of people who "can't catch mice and can't beat guys" (that is, they have no achievements and no major problems). The people in the village have always wanted to adjust the village cadres, but the town leaders always disagree because they There is hard work without credit.

Once, Liang Hongcai, a villager, accidentally found a copy of the "Organization Law of the Village Committee of the People's Republic of China (Trial Implementation)" in the town.After reading it, he felt like he had found a treasure, and quietly took it back to the village for the villagers to circulate.After reading this pamphlet, the masses believed that democratic elections were not allowed in the town, which violated the Organic Law of Village Committees.Therefore, they used this as a basis to report the situation to the township, county civil affairs bureaus, and the organization department of the county party committee, and demanded that village committee elections be held.Under such circumstances, the town had to agree to the demands of the masses and agreed to the democratic election of village committee cadres.On the day when the election meeting was held, more than 130 people from the whole village participated in the voting, which was the largest number of people attending the meeting since the household production contract was established.

After the promulgation of the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial), it changed the situation that villagers' self-government could not be relied upon, and played an important role in promoting the development of villagers' self-government.In the following ten years, rural village committees across the country generally held three general elections.Some provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government have basically completed the fourth general election of village committees.According to statistics, by the end of 1997, there were 905804 village committees and 3788041 village committee cadres in rural areas across the country.

Twenty-five provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government have promulgated implementation measures for the Organic Law of Village Committees (Trial).Fujian, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Guizhou, Hunan, Hebei, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Henan and other provinces and autonomous regions have promulgated village committee election methods.Many prefectures (cities), counties (cities), and townships (towns) have formulated specific measures to guide village committee elections in light of local conditions.In terms of the democratic election of villagers' committees, a legal system framework has been initially established from the central government to local governments, from guiding principles to specific operational norms.Systems such as democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision have also been gradually established. Villager self-government has been gradually promoted from point to point, with continuous innovation in form and deepening content.

With the development of grassroots democratic politics, the content and form of villagers' self-government have been further deepened, and at the same time some new situations and problems have emerged. Therefore, it is necessary to revise the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial) to adapt to the new situation. On August 1998, 8, the Fourth Session of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress deliberated and passed the Organic Law of the Village Committees of the People's Republic of China.Compared with the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial Implementation) passed in 24, the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees officially promulgated this time not only has a larger length, from the original 1987 articles to 21, but more importantly The content has been further enriched, and a series of important supplements have been made to the nature and functions of the villagers' committees, the principles, procedures and methods of elections, the basic working system and working methods of the village committees, and the guarantee of law enforcement. Revise and improve, so that the self-management, self-education, and self-service functions of villagers' self-government and the principles of democratic election, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision are more specific and procedural.

Democratic supervision is an important part of villagers' self-government, and the right of supervision is one of the rights endowed by the Chinese villager self-government system to the rural masses.However, since the establishment of the village self-government system, people have paid more attention to democratic elections, but neglected democratic supervision.Due to the lack of supervision, the self-government of villagers in some places has become "self-government of village officials" or even "self-government of village chiefs" in disguise to a certain extent.How to make the right of supervision hard and practical has become an important part of further improving village self-government.

Houchen Village, Baiyang Street, Wuyi County, Zhejiang Province is located at the junction of urban and rural areas.In the past, due to the opaque management of village affairs and undemocratic major decision-making, there were many conflicts in the village, tense relations between cadres and the masses, and constant petitioning by villagers. On June 2004, 6, Houchen Village established the first village-level democratic supervision organization in the country. The village affairs supervision committee was elected by the masses, and together with the village party branch and the village committee, it was called the "three committees".Village affairs supervision, especially village-level financial supervision, is in the charge of the supervision committee.With the establishment of the supervisory committee, the appearance of Houchen Village has undergone fundamental changes. Not only has the village’s fixed income increased year by year, but the village cadres have achieved “zero violations of discipline” and villagers have achieved “zero petitions.” In May 18, Wuyi County fully promoted the village affairs supervision committee system in 2005 administrative villages in the county.Since then, village affairs supervision committees have been successively established in rural areas of Shandong, Henan and other provinces.

The institutional innovation of the Village Affairs Supervision Committee has grasped the "fate gate" of improving grassroots democracy, and prevented the transformation of villager autonomy from the system into "village official autonomy". In October 2010, the No. 10 meeting of the Standing Committee of the Eleventh National People's Congress passed the newly revised Organic Law of Village Committees.The revised Organic Law of the Village Committee stipulates that the village should establish a village affairs supervision organization to be responsible for the implementation of the villagers' democratic financial management and village affairs transparency. Its members should have accounting and management knowledge and be elected by the villagers.Members of villagers committees and their close relatives are not allowed to serve as members of village affairs supervision institutions.Members of the village affairs supervision organization attend the meetings of the villagers committee as non-voting delegates, and are responsible and report their work to the villagers meeting and the villagers representative meeting.With the introduction of the newly revised Organic Law of Villagers' Committees, villagers' self-government has entered a new stage of development.

(End of this chapter)