I. Having a full understanding of the important significance of carrying through the“Implementation Outline for the All-round Advancement of Administration by Law”Made by the State Council

In order to carry through the implementation of the basic strategy of running the country by rule of law and the spirit of the 16th Party Congress and the Third Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee, and to adapt to the new situation of building a well-off society in an all-round way, the State Council promulgated the“Implementation Outline for the All-round Advancement of Administration by Law”(hereinafter referred to as the Outline). The Outline sets up the grand goal of building a government exercising the rule of law, determines the guiding thoughts, specific targets, basic principles and requirements, main tasks and measures for our country to advance in an all-round way the administration by law in the next ten years; it is an action program for the all-round advancement of administration by law and for the construction of a government exercising the rule of law in the new stage, and it has an important bearing on the further promotion of socialist political and cultural progress, adherence to the all-round, coordinated and sustainable scientific viewpoint of development and the enhancement of government’s self-building.

At present, Shanghai finds itself in a stage of strategic opportunity for the accelerated construction of a modern international megalopolis and for the all-round construction of a well-off society. Governments at all levels and their governmental departments in this Municipality shall, from the height of governance for the people and building a government having responsibility, doing service and exercising the rule of law, have a full understanding of the essence of the Outline of the State Council, actively carry through all institutional measures set out in the Outline and grasp firmly and well through the implementation of the Outline as a basic task in the government work for the time to come.

II. Guiding thoughts and basic requirements for carrying through the Outline

1. Guiding thoughts. In carrying through the Outline and advancing in an all-round way the administration by law, it is imperative to take Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the“Three Represents”as the guide, carry out the spirit of the 16th Party Congress and the Third Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of Communist Party of China and adhere to the all-round, coordinated and sustainable scientific viewpoint of development idea with humans taken as foundation. It is imperative to adhere to an organic combination of the Party’s leadership, the people being the masters and the governing of the country by law, to respect and uphold the authority of the constitution, and to ensure the unity of legal systems and the compliance with government orders. It is imperative to conscientiously follow, accurately grasp, carry through the basic principles, requirements, targets, tasks and all measures put forward in the Outline and embody the characteristics of China, special aspects of the times and features of Shanghai. It is imperative to closely combine the advancement of administration by law with the shift of government functions, and the structural reform of administration with the modal innovation of administration, reflect the spirit of seeking truth, doing concrete matters and making reform and innovation, and to promote in an all-round way the building of a government having responsibility, doing service and exercising the rule of law.

2. Basic requirements. In carrying through the Outline, and advancing in an all-round way the administration by law, it is necessary to stick to taking humans as foundation and make the respecting and safeguarding of citizens’rights as the fundamental starting point and foothold in the exercise of administrative powers according to law. It is necessary to subject the activity of the government in exercising administrative control to the principles and standards of law, and ensure lawful and reasonable administration, just procedure, high efficiency and convenience for the people, honesty and faithfulness, and the unity of power and responsibility. It is necessary to earnestly transform the administration concept and work style, intensify the awareness and function of service, actively perform statutory official duties and raise the work efficiency and service level. It is necessary to enhance the awareness of responsibility, faithfully discharge the duties endowed by the constitution and laws, conscientiously subject oneself to the people’s supervision and ensure law enforcement shall be safeguarded, powers be coupled with responsibility, the use of power be supervised, the violation of law be prosecuted and the infringement of right bear tort liability.

III. Main tasks and measures for carrying through the Outline

Starting from now to the year 2007, governments at various levels and their governmental departments in this Municipality have the main tasks for pressing ahead with administration by law in an all-round way as follows:

1. The thorough implementation of the“Administrative License Law”shall be taken as the turning point for accelerating the transformation of government functions and the innovation of administrative modes. The“Administrative License Law”shall be strictly implemented, the act of administrative license be standardized, the related supportive systems of establishing, implementing, and supervising and examining the administrative license be carried out, the administrative license system suited to the demand of the development of socialist market economy be established. Items for administrative license shall continue to be reduced, fee-collection items relating to administrative license be sorted out, the process inspection and after-event supervision be strengthened, the multiple administrative means of indirect administration and dynamic administration such as government guidance and, administrative contract shall be actively explored and used, and the building of electronic government affairs be accelerated so as to promote the innovation and optimization of the government administrative modes. The thorough implementation of the“Administrative License Law”shall be taken as the turning point for boosting the transformation of government administrative concept and administrative function, further straightening up the relationships between the government and the enterprise, between the government and the market, and between the government and the society, pushing forward the separation of the government from the enterprise and of administration from capital management, deepening the structural reform of investment, putting into effect the separation of the government’s function of public administration from the state assets contributor’s function. The government’s economic administration function shall be shifted to the function of mainly serving the market subject and creating a good development environment, the basic role of resources distribution by the market shall be brought into full play, every item of the rights of the market subject shall be really protected, and the self-discipline and service functions of trade organizations and social intermediary agencies shall be brought into play to a greater extent. The long-effective market-control mechanism, which combines administrative law enforcement, trade self-discipline, public opinion supervision and mass participation shall be perfected, the establishment of a social credit service system shall be accelerated, a mechanism of punishment and warning for promise-breaking shall be set up, in order to build a fair, orderly and healthy environment for market competition.

2. The making known to the public of government information shall be actively advanced to promote the openness, convenience for the people, standardization, cleanness and honesty of government administration. It is necessary to implement to the letter all institutional measures set in the“Provisions of Shanghai Municipality on Open Government Information”. It is necessary, through practice and exploration, to further make a scientific demarcation of the criteria of government information and other information, and of the information to be made public and that may be exempted from being made public, perfect the government gazette, website, archives and other forms to open government information, widen the channel to have access to information that brings convenience and benefit to the people, improve and perfect the government information administration and search system, establish and implement the mechanism for the settlement of disputes about open government information and the supervisory mechanism therefor, handle well, in the course of practice, the relationships between the opening of government information and the keeping of state secret, the protection of business secret and that of personal privacy, and deal well with the problems of linking the opening of government information to other systems such as archives management. With the opening of government information to the public as a sally port, the public’s right to know shall be safeguarded, the system of public participation in public affairs shall be pursued, and the mechanism of social supervision over government acts shall be carried out so as to prompt the government to exercise power lawfully and appropriately.

3. The decision-making procedure shall be perfected, a mechanism for the tracking and evaluating of decision-making be established, so as to promote scientific and democratic and lawful decision-making. It is necessary to draw up and perfect the internal decision-making procedure in administrative organs, and set up the systems of public participation in decision-making, and experts’demonstration and legality appraisal of decision-making, and the system for collective panel discussion of major issues. With respect to decision-making items in close relation to social public interests, and to the interests of the broad masses of the people, administrative organs shall release in advance the decision-making plan to the general public, and extensively hear opinions from the general public and the interested persons through hearings, forums and other forms. Where those major decision-making items involve economic and social development in this Municipality or within its jurisdiction and those decision-making items have a fairly high level of specialization, it is imperative to organize or entrust, in advance, specialized research institutes and experts to conduct investigation, study, consultation, analyses and demonstration. During decision-making, it is also imperative to make legality appraisal with major items decided on by the decision-making organ through collective panel discussion. It is necessary to establish a mechanism for the tracking and evaluation of decision-making, assign relevant organs, personnel or entrust related research institutes, social intermediary agencies to track, survey and evaluate the decision-making contents, and the system, mechanism, and mode for implementing the decision as well as its operating cost and impact on economy and society, feed back in time to the decision-making level the findings of investigation and evaluation, adjust and perfect relevant decisions that have been made.

4. The enhancement of community administration and the perfection of social security system shall be taken as the key point to intensify the government functions of social administration and public service. It is imperative to attach importance to and increase the government input in the field of social administration and public service in compliance with the requirements of an all-round, coordinated and sustainable scientific viewpoint of development with humans taken as foundation. The administrative system of“two levels of government, three levels of administration and four levels of network”shall continue to be improved to give full play to the role of community in administering public affairs and public-interest undertakings. Stress shall be laid on doing well in developing all social undertakings, constructing infrastructure and public facilities, protecting biological environment, increasing employment, and perfecting the social security system, and exploration shall be actively made into the operation mode of the government providing public service in cooperation with enterprises and conducting social administration in cooperation with the society. It is necessary to establish and perfect all kinds of pre-warning and emergency mechanisms, improve the government capability of responding to emergencies and risks, properly handle all kinds of contingencies and maintain normal social and economic order.

5. The reform of comprehensive law-enforcement shall be propelled in depth and the administrative law-enforcement system be further straightened up. The comprehensive law-enforcement shall be further improved in the field of cultural administration, the comprehensive law-enforcement shall continue to be deepened in the field of urban administration, and the system of comprehensive law-enforcement in the fields closely related to the life and health of the masses of the people such as safety supervision over food and drug shall be actively explored. The relative centralization of the administrative license power and the administrative coercion power shall be further explored on the basis of practicing relatively centralized power of punishment, and according to administrative characteristics. The government functions shall be scientifically disposed and rationally divided to streamline government agencies on the basis of comprehensive law-enforcement and according to the principles of staggering the functions of superior and inferior governments, dividing official work based on leadership of vertical lines and of horizontal lines, and putting a single issue under the charge of one department in principle. The examination and coordination function of the staffing administration department, the finance department and the legal affairs department in respect of the set-up of government agencies, the determination of functions, and the ratification of personnel formation shall be strengthened to gradually realize the legalization of duties, agencies and formation.

6. The institution of all systems legislated by the government shall be perfected; and the formulation and implementation of administrative, normative documents be standardized. The proposal of draft local law and regulations and the formulation of government regulations shall comply with the objective law of economic and social development, fully reflecting public interests and the immediate interests of the broad masses of the people and maintaining the unity of legal systems and the compliance with government orders. The system of open consultation and legislative hearing shall be further improved, and draft regulations be announced to the society through the website of“China Shanghai”to solicit opinions from the general public; with respect to a draft regulation directly involving the immediate interests of the masses of the people and incurring fairly big differences of opinion, the draft-making department shall organize a legislative hearing, report the opinion and proposal as well as the situation of acceptance to the routine meeting of the Municipal People’s Government, and reply the proposer the situation of the acceptance of opinions and the reason therefor. Channels through which the general public may reflect opinions and proposals on government legislative work shall be established so as to accept the opinions and proposals from citizens, legal entities or other organizations on the formulation, revision and repeal of regulations, and the building of a pluralistic legislative drafting mechanism shall be explored. The cost-benefit analysis system shall be explored; the cost-benefit analysis shall be conducted before making a legislative decision involving major control measures. A mechanism for evaluation of government regulations shall be set up. The formulation of administrative normative documents shall continue to be strictly standardized, efforts shall be made to reduce the quantity of administrative normative documents, the filing supervision system shall be implemented and the mechanism of before-event examination be explored. Where the newly published administrative normative document has been in force for two years, the organ that drew up the document shall organize an evaluation of the legality, necessity and feasibility of its continuing implementation.

7. The building of administrative procedure shall be accelerated; highlighting the standardization and restriction on government administration by the administrative procedure. Administrative organs at all levels and their staff members shall foster and strengthen their sense of procedure observance, follow the requirements for lawfulness, reasonableness and proper procedure to establish and perfect all administrative procedure systems including withdrawal, openness, prior notification, hearing and explanation for reasons in administrative law-enforcement such as administrative punishment, administrative license and administrative coercion and in the exercise of other administrative control, and strictly follow the statutory procedure in the exercise of power and the performance of duties so as to ensure government administration is standardized and executed according to law.

8. The revenue and expenditure in the public finance shall be standardized, the perfection of the public finance system be accelerated, and the government’s performance of the public administration function be safeguarded and standardized. The administrative fees-collection shall be standardized and the items of administrative fees charged not on the strength of law, regulation or rule be resolutely cancelled, where the items of fees created by local laws and government regulations are obviously unreasonable, a proposal to amend the local law shall be submitted in time or the government regulation shall be revised; with respect to the administrative fee charged on the basis of law, regulation or rule, it must be collected by the legal subject according to statutory items, criteria and procedure, and the legal subject is banned from entrusting an institution or social intermediary agency to collect the items of fees which administrative agencies have no power to charge. The system of practicing the system of separately managing revenue and expenditure shall be strictly executed and all forfeits and collected administrative fees be turned over to the national treasury, refunding in any form being strictly forbidden. Guarantee shall be provided for unified inclusion of the administrative expenditure in fiscal budgets to gradually realize the centralized payment by the national treasury. The fiscal budget and its execution shall be brought onto the track of rule-by-law step by step, the government procurement behavior shall be standardized, the management of extra-budgetary funds be strengthened, the auditing supervision be enhanced and an open and transparent system of public fiscal budgets be established.

9. The system of investigating and affixing the responsibility for administrative fault shall be pursued, and supervision over administrative acts be intensified to realize the unity of power and responsibility. It is necessary, on the basis of delimiting the functions and powers according to law, scientifically dividing official posts and rationally specifying the area of responsibility, and in the principle of being open, just, scientific and objective, correcting mistakes whenever discovered and giving punishments commensurate to mistakes, to practice the pilot execution and the step-by-step popularization of the system of investigating and affixing the responsibility for administrative fault in connection with the illegal acts and dereliction of civil servants at the two levels of the municipal and district governments and their departments. Exploration shall be made into the establishment of a supervision and appraisal mechanism which integrates the supervision of administration efficiency and quantitative evaluation of government performance with social supervision, the level-by-level supervision, special supervision and other administrative supervision systems shall be strengthened, administrative compensation shall be strictly carried out; and the establishment of administrative compensation system shall be explored in order to promote the unity of government power and responsibility. The power supervision by the people’s congress shall be conscientiously accepted, the system of reporting on one’s office work and honesty in various forms shall be implemented, and the major issues reporting system, the inquiry addressing system and the democratic appraisal system shall be improved. Governments at all levels and their governmental departments shall conscientiously subject themselves to judicial supervision and maintain judicial authority. Importance shall be attached to public opinion supervision by news media. The problems and shortcomings in government administration exposed by all kinds of supervision shall be corrected and solved in time.

10. The systems of administrative judgment, administrative mediation, people’s mediation, and making and handling complaints/petitions by letters or visits in person shall be perfected to further form a pluralistic social dispute settlement system. The mechanism and procedure of administrative judgment and mediation shall be perfected, and a system of the government settling disputes featuring convenience for the people, quick-action and low-cost shall be actively explored. The system of people’s mediation shall be perfected, and people’s mediation organizations in various forms shall be consolidated, strengthened and developed, the work of the people’s mediation committee shall be standardized, and the role of people’s mediation work shall be brought into full play in maintaining social stability. The system of making and handling complaints/petitions by letters or visits in person shall be perfected, the legitimate rights and interests of the persons making complaints/petitions by letters or visits in person shall be really safeguarded, and in respect to the cases of complaints/petitions that can be solved through legal procedure such as administrative reconsideration and lawsuit, the party concerned shall be guided to settle disputes through the legal channel to protect his/her/its own legitimate rights and interests. The system of ascertaining and investigating the illegal administrative problem complained about or tipped off shall be perfected, the procedure and responsibility for ascertainment and investigation shall be defined, and the complainant or informant shall be given a reply about handling results. It is through the establishment of a pluralistic social dispute-settling mechanism to realize social stability, providing a better guarantee for reform and development.

IV Strengthening organizational leadership over the work of carrying out the Outline and amplifying the responsibility system for administration according to law

1. Deepening understanding, strengthening leadership and defining responsibility. Governments at all levels and their governmental departments shall have a profound understanding of the importance and urgency of the work of carrying out the Outline, get a full knowledge of the necessity of standardizing government power, earnestly enhance leadership and push forward in an all-round, solid and in-depth way administration according to law. The chief persons in charge of administration of governments at all levels and their governmental departments are the first persons responsible for pressing ahead with administration according to law in their areas and departments. They shall, according to the requirements of the Outline and the unified disposition of this Municipality, organize and launch the work of carrying through the Outline.

2. Making a planned, step-by-step, solid and steady advancement. The Outline is a programmatic document for administration according to law, a long-term strategic task. Governments at all levels and their governmental departments shall take the implementation of the Outline as a routine work in administration according to law, make a plan every year, pay attention to the implementation at every level and combine overall advancement with breakthrough at key points. Governments at all levels and their governmental departments shall, in the light of actual circumstances in their respective areas and departments, conscientiously organize and draw up annual plans and schemes for administration according to law, perfect the matching institutional measures, make clear the focal point of work in different stages, find out the right point of penetration for reform and make great efforts to launch the institutional innovation so as to strive for remarkable improvement in this Municipality’s work of administration according to law by the year 2007.

3. Establishing and strengthening the prompting and inspecting system and the periodically reporting system. Governments at all levels and their governmental departments shall enhance supervision and inspection over the thorough implementation of the Outline. The municipal and district/county people’s governments shall every year report the situation of pushing forward administration according to law to their corresponding people’s congress and the standing committee thereof as well as to the government at the next higher level, and the executive departments of the municipal and district/county people’s governments shall every year report the situation of advancing administration by law to their corresponding people’s government.

4. Enhancing civil servants’sense of administration by law and raising their capability and level of administration by law. Leading officials at all levels shall take the basic requirements for administration by law such as lawful administration, rational administration, proper procedure, high-efficiency and convenience for the people, honesty and promise-keeping, and unity of power and responsibility as the norms that must be observed in the performance of duties. The system of leading officials studying law before a meeting and give leading officials at all levels training in basic legal knowledge shall be established. The system of training and examining civil servants with respect to law shall be carried out in depth, and regular training in basic law and specialized law shall be conducted for them in accordance with the laws, regulations and rules newly enacted or revised by the State and local authorities, so as to prompt leading officials and civil servants at all levels to further establish the sense of administration by law and raise their capability and level of administration by law.

5. Reinforcing the building of legal affairs institutions and the supervisory ranks, and further perfecting the mechanism of internal supervision of the administrative organs. The government legal affairs institution and supervisory department assume the duties of coordination, guidance and supervision in carrying through the Outline; the legal affairs institution shall give full play to its role of adviser and assistant and legal counsellor in administration by law, and the supervisory department shall, according to statutory duties, enhance supervision over the efficiency of administration by law and over a clean and honest administration. The legal affairs institutions and supervisory departments under the governments at all levels shall be brave to take on heavy responsibilities, intensify studies, raise the service level, and conscientiously do a good job of coordination, supervision, guidance, policy research and condition exchange with a high sense of responsibility and mission to assist leading officials of governments at all levels and their governmental departments in doing well in the work of carrying out the Outline and pressing ahead with administration according to law in an all-round way.