——公共参与是公民直接参与发展决策的便捷渠道。国家深入推进民主立法，健全公众参与立法的途径和方式，建立委托第三方起草和由第三方居中评估的立法制度，健全法律法规规章草案公开征求意见和公众意见采纳情况反馈机制。一些地方出台了重大行政决策程序规定，把公众参与作为重要法定程序，明确了公众参与行政决策的方式方法，广泛采用公开征求意见、听证会、座谈会、问卷调查等方式。2007年，国务院公布政府信息公开条例，重点推进行政审批、财政预决算、保障性住房、食品药品安全、征地拆迁等信息的公开，使公民及时、准确获取信息，保障知情权，进行有效监督，不断提高政府工作透明度和执法效能。公众参与司法渠道逐步拓宽。目前，全国人民陪审员总数已超过22万人。自2003年开展人民监督员制度试点工作以来，截至2016年4月，共选任人民监督员4.8万余人次，监督各类职务犯罪案件4.9万余件。截至2015年年底，全国共有人民调解委员会近80万个，人民调解员390余万人，近8年来排查化解矛盾纠纷6700多万件。公众信访渠道进一步丰富，政治参与途径进一步拓宽。国家信访信息系统正式开通，实现公民信访网上投诉、办理、评价，并开通手机信访、微信公众号。2015年全国网上信访141万件次，其中建议意见14万件次。

五、努力促进文化发展

Public participation provides citizens with ready access to decision-making processes. China has furthered democratic legislation and improved the channels and forms of public participation in legislation. Efforts have also been made to establish a system of commissioning third parties to draft legislation and evaluate the drafts, and improve the mechanisms for soliciting public opinion on drafts of laws and regulations and giving feedback on responses. Some local authorities have adopted regulations on administrative decision-making procedures for major issues, which list public participation as an important legal procedure and define the forms and methods of public participation in administrative decision-making. Open solicitation of public opinion, hearings, seminars and questionnaires are widely applied for this purpose.

In 2007 the State Council enacted Regulations on Open Government Information, emphasizing open information concerning administrative approval, financial budgets and final accounts, government-subsidized housing for the poor, food and drug safety, land appropriation, and household demolition and resettlement. The Regulations provide for prompt and accurate disclosure of government information to the public and protection of their right to know, and ensure effective scrutiny over government work while enhancing transparency in government information and efficiency in law-enforcement.

Channels of public participation in judicial processes have been steadily broadened. The number of people's assessors has now surpassed 220,000. From 2003 when China piloted the people's supervisor mechanism to April 2016, there were more than 48,000 people's supervisors, who had exercised supervision over 49,000 cases of job-related crimes. By the end of 2015, there had been nearly 800,000 people's mediation committees with more than 3.9 million people's mediators, who had, in recent eight years, investigated and resolved more than 67 million cases of disputes.

Public complaint filing has taken on more diversified forms, further broadening the channels for public political participation. The national complaint filing system has opened to the public for online complaint filing, resolution, and result appraisal through computers, mobile phones and the social-media app WeChat's public accounts platform. A total of 1.41 million cases were filed online in 2015, of which 140,000 were aimed at offering suggestions.

V. Promoting Cultural Progress