The current Village Organization Law is the only law that guarantees villagers' autonomy in China, but there is no provision for setting up villagers' representative meetings. It refers to the word "villagers' representatives", and the original text is as follows: "Villages with large population or scattered residence may elect villagers' representatives, and the villagers' committee shall convene a meeting of villagers' representatives to discuss and decide on matters authorized by the villagers' meeting. Villagers' representatives shall be elected by villagers from every five to fifteen households or by several villagers' groups. " (Article 21) Obviously, the "villagers' representatives" here are only an alternative way when it is inconvenient to hold villagers' meetings in some places, and the method of determining the representatives has great flexibility. It must be admitted that the current village organization law emphasizes direct democracy, that is, direct democratic decision-making is made by villagers' meeting (it is better to change it to villagers' meeting, which is easier to remember and read, and the proposed draft of villagers' autonomy law adopts the formulation of villagers' meeting). However, the power given to the village Committee to hold villagers' meetings is great and it is difficult to supervise. Therefore, in reality, village committees can not only basically hold villagers' meetings, but also rarely hold villagers' representative meetings. Even if a meeting of villagers' representatives is held, the composition of villagers' representatives can be determined quite casually. In this way, the decision-making power of the villagers' meeting becomes empty, which opens the door for some people in the village Committee to abuse their power.
Perhaps in order to curb the abuse of power by village committees, many provincial, city and county people's congress standing committees require the establishment of villagers' representative meetings at the village level. It is said that this "permanent institution" has been set up in more than half of the villages in the country. (Sun Hairong: Research on the Authorization of Villagers' Meetings to Villagers' Representatives' Meetings, China Rural Villagers' Autonomy Information Network) Many places have also promulgated the procedures for villagers' representatives' meetings. At present, villagers' representative meetings have actually existed in large numbers.
Does the village really need such a permanent institution? The answer is yes. As the administrative village is a first-class district, it has its own finance and only one authority according to law, so there will be the phenomenon of making "laws", implementing "laws", judging by itself and supervising by itself. Even if only the convening right of the villagers' meeting and the procedural supervision right of the village Committee are considered, the villagers' representative meeting is necessary.
Will the establishment of a villagers' representative meeting increase the burden on villagers? The burden may be a little, but it can be minimized. It can be considered that the term of office of the village head (known as the leader in the current village group law) and the representatives of the villagers' representative meeting is the same as that of the village Committee, and the election work is carried out together with the village Committee election. The village finance only gives delegates some allowance for lost time. In fact, due to the large surplus of rural labor force, many young people who are active and willing to serve the public have no way to report, and positions such as village representatives are just good opportunities to train them.
The villagers' representative meeting is the representative organ of public opinion in the village, and it is as responsible for the villagers' meeting as the villagers' committee. In addition to the right to convene villagers' meetings, at least the term goals and development plans formulated by villagers' committees should be reviewed; Drafting the articles of association of villagers' autonomy and village rules and regulations, supervising the implementation after the adoption of the villagers' meeting, and deciding the appointment of villagers' committee members according to the nomination of the chairman of the villagers' committee; Evaluate the work of village committees and villagers' groups, and praise or warn the members and leaders of village committees when necessary; To propose a draft resolution to impeach members of the villagers' committee to the villagers' meeting; And other short-term powers granted by the villagers' meeting.
The legal status of the villagers' representative meeting should be higher than that of the villagers' committee, so its provisions should precede the Villagers' Autonomy Law. (See the draft at the end of the article) A standardized election management committee (Election Committee) should be set up to automatically start election affairs.
Representatives of villagers' representative meetings, village committee directors, deputy directors and village heads should be elected through standardized, competitive and free elections. A standardized, fair and relatively independent Election Management Committee (Election Committee) that can automatically start election affairs is one of the guarantees to do this. In a sense, the Electoral Affairs Commission is a tool of the authorities. However, Article 13 of the Villagers' Organization Law simply stipulates: "The election of villagers' committees shall be presided over by election of villagers committee. Election of villagers committee members are elected by villagers' meetings or villagers' groups. "Such a rule is not enough.
Considering that the election management committee should be relatively independent and detached, and it also needs certain professional knowledge, it is envisaged in the Law on Villagers' Autonomy drafted by the author that the establishment of the village election management committee should be under the guidance of the civil assistant of the township government or other cadres sent by the township, with the chief representative of the villagers' representative meeting or the representative who will succeed the chief representative as the deputy director, and each villagers' group elects one member, and then several members and the deputy director jointly elect a director, who may not run for the director and deputy director of the village committee. According to the expenditure of election funds in the previous year, the township government subsidized half of the election funds to the village, and the other half was paid by the village finance. (See the draft at the end of the article) The village committee is the most powerful institution in the village. But in any case, it is only suitable to play the role of administrative executive organ. If it is confirmed that the village committee is an administrative executive organ, it is not appropriate that the chairman, vice-chairmen and members of the village committee are all elected by universal suffrage. They are elected by universal suffrage within the same scope, and may represent different groups of villagers with different ideas. It is easy to restrict each other in execution. In addition, people have to ask: Why do some people run for the director, while others only run for the committee? If members have more votes than the director or deputy director, does it mean that their public opinion base exceeds that of the director or deputy director? If members have more votes than the chairman or deputy director, should the chairman or deputy director listen to the opinions of members more? Wait a minute.
For administrative law enforcement agencies, work efficiency is very important. In other words, although the law stipulates that "the villagers' committee decides issues and adopts the principle that the minority is subordinate to the majority", what if the minority does not obey the majority? It's very difficult under the present system. If the minority is the director, will he implement the majority opinion well? Experience at home and abroad shows that in an executive body, it is very important for deputy directors and members to work closely with their main positions. To do this, first of all, their ideas should be more consistent, and secondly, they should have a certain degree of mutual affection. However, according to the current method, if the deputy director and members insist on their own opinions and refuse to cooperate with the director, it will be difficult for the director to change his opinion, and it will be even more difficult to recall the person.
In order to ensure the efficiency of administrative executive organs, we must be very cautious at the beginning of their composition. In other words, either directors can easily change the opinions or positions of others, or others can easily change the opinions or positions of directors. To achieve this goal, the best way is that the deputy director candidate is elected by the director candidate, and only such partners in the administrative executive organs are elected by universal suffrage, and other members are nominated by the elected director according to laws and regulations and recognized by the public opinion organs.
I don't agree to copy the composition or election method of the administrative organs of a western country, but the candidates for the chief executive seek their running partners to run together and nominate members of the working group after success. This is a successful practice in many countries and we can't ignore it. By the way, in recent years, it seems that our village committees have not found many cases of deadlock and paralysis in their operation, because the administrative power in many places is actually not in the hands of the village committees, or the truly elected village committees have not worked hard. And this does not meet the requirements of villagers' autonomy.
To sum up, Article 11 of the Villagers' Organization Law stipulates that the chairman, vice-chairmen and members of a villagers' committee are directly elected by the villagers. No organization or individual may designate, appoint or replace members of a villagers' committee. "In the" villagers' autonomy law ",the following amendments shall be made:
The chairman of the villagers committee is directly elected by the villagers. Before the election, the candidate for director must designate a running mate, the future deputy director of the village Committee, to participate in the election. The elected director shall put forward a list of other members of the villagers' committee to the villagers' representative meeting within half a month, and the villagers' representative meeting shall discuss and decide whether to approve it; For those who are not passed, the elected directors shall propose new candidates within one week. No organization or individual may designate, appoint or replace members of a villagers' committee according to law. The Law of Villagers' Groups puts forward in Article 10 that "the villagers' committee may set up several villagers' groups according to the living conditions, and the group leaders shall be elected by the villagers' group meetings. "
We know that the "villagers' group" mentioned here is equivalent to the production team in the people's commune period, but it is not small. It is necessary to set up villagers' groups in administrative villages. However, it is best for the law to suggest a scale, such as about 30 farmhouses close to where they live. Villagers' groups and village leaders are mainly set up to facilitate meetings and work, and leaders do not have much power. However, because of the key position given by him (her) in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, according to the author's understanding, the villagers are also very concerned about this position. Therefore, the provisions of the village group law here are too simple. The author assumes that the group leader should also be elected through standardized campaign activities, and can vote with the representatives of the villagers' representative meeting and the village Committee director on the triennial election day under the arrangement of the election Committee. Before the election, the leader candidate must designate a running mate, the future deputy leader, to participate in the election. The team leader shall receive the same amount of lost time allowance as the representatives of the villagers' representative meeting.
5. The stipulation that "a candidate can only be elected if he obtains more than half of the votes of the villagers who have the right to vote" can cancel the stipulation in Article 14 of the Villagers' Group Law: "In the election of villagers' committees, more than half of the villagers who have the right to vote will vote, and the election is valid; Candidates must get more than half of the votes of the villagers who voted to be elected. "
"Double Majority" in elections is a double rule generally adopted in elections at all levels in China. Double half is reasonable and has been used in many countries. However, they also have obvious shortcomings, especially in the second half. Regarding the first half, some countries no longer stipulate this, but legislate for "compulsory voting", that is, those who should vote but not vote will be fined (like Australia and other countries). However, most countries encourage and simplify the timely registration and voting of voters by increasing the competitiveness of candidates, widely publicizing the significance and time of elections and other means. Due to the lack of experience in rural elections in China, this article can be retained for the time being. But the second half can be cancelled immediately.
The latter part (that is, candidates must obtain an absolute majority of voters to be elected) is nothing more than worrying about the underrepresentation of the elected people. Generally speaking, the countries of European continental law system pay more attention to this problem, which caused huge human and material consumption there for most of the twentieth century. Later, people made a fuss about the "total number of votes", changing the original number of registered voters to the number of voters and then to the effective number of votes. In this way, the base number can be smaller and the second or even more rounds of voting can be avoided. However, the author agrees with the practice of Britain, the United States, Canada, India and other countries, that is, under the condition of full and fair competition, the relative majority election is basically implemented. In fact, any representative democracy is only relatively fair, any election is only relative selection, and a relative majority vote is enough, otherwise the cost and effect will be disproportionate. In addition, in order to win more than half of the votes, it is not worth the loss to reduce the difference ratio or introduce complicated pre-selection. If you are worried that the votes are too scattered, you only need to slightly raise the threshold for candidate registration, such as requiring a certain number of citizens to sign, and candidates need to pay some deposit to register for the election. There is no limit to the number of general candidates, which can be twice or more than the number of elected candidates. A. In view of the different understandings of the concept of villagers and the reform of the household registration system, a definition of "villagers in their own village" should be added to the Law on Villager Autonomy: having the household registration of their own administrative village; Or those who have no household registration but have a fixed residence in the administrative village area and have lived continuously for more than 1 year can be called villagers in the village.
B. Article 3 of the Village Organization Law says: "Grass-roots organizations in rural areas of China * * * carry out their work and play a leading role in accordance with the articles of association of China * * *; In accordance with the Constitution and laws, support and guarantee villagers to carry out autonomous activities and directly exercise democratic rights. " Needless to say, Party organizations act in accordance with party constitution, the Constitution and laws. In addition, the legislature has no right to request the formation of a political party (even a grass-roots organization) except the Law on the Organization of Associations and the Law on Political Parties. Therefore, it is suggested to delete this article.
C. Article 23 stipulates: "The villagers' committee and its members shall abide by the Constitution, laws, regulations and national policies, handle affairs fairly, be honest and upright, and serve the villagers enthusiastically. "The similar contents in this article and other articles belong to propaganda and education, and are not suitable for writing in law. It is recommended to delete.