The Standing Committee of the Ya’an Municipal People’s Congress has made solid progress in soliciting and conveying public opinions and suggestions to the national legislature, since it was designated as a local legislative outreach office by the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee in July 2021.

Ya'an, in Southwest China’s Sichuan province, has so far established 19 outreach offices to the municipal people’s congress, forming an opinion collection network covering counties, townships and communities, as well as schools, enterprises and social organizations, according to Tao Bingzhong, chairperson of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of Ya'an Municipal People’s Congress. The channels for people to participate in legislation and express their opinions and demands are continuously expanding,” he said. 

Ya’an officials said that as a new democratic legislative format based on the direct participation of local people in national legislation, the city’s outreach offices have actively pooled the wisdom of the public and timely and efficiently transmitted their aspirations and sentiments to national legislative bodies. They said that each soliciting of public opinions is a vivid practice of the whole-process people’s democracy.

By March 2023, Ya’an outreach office had completed the solicitation of opinions on 17 draft laws, including the Seed Law, the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women, and the Law on Physical Culture and Sports, and had submitted 491 legislative suggestions collected from a total of 1,950 people, serving as a good bridge connecting the people and the national legislature.

"The villagers never thought they could directly participate in legislative activities. Now they are very enthusiastic in providing their own opinions and suggestions on draft laws on rural collective economic organizations,” said Zhou Hongyu, head of the collective economic organization of Hengshan village, Wangu town in Ya’an.

Recently, the second meeting of the 14th NPC Standing Committee passed the Law on the Ecological Protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which adopted suggestions from the Ya'an outreach office on modifying the delineations of the protection scope and coordination of relevant laws.

"We will continue to make good use of the mechanism of local legislative outreach offices, build a high-quality participation platform and expand the channels for gathering public opinions and suggestions to better reflect the intentions and suggestions of the people on national legislation", said Tao.