China's procurator-general Jia Chunwang pledged to strengthen
the supervisory functions of procuratorates and standardize law
enforcement in order to safeguard social equity and justice.
In his report on the work of the Supreme People's Procuratorate
to the ongoing Second Session of the 10th National People's
Congress (NPC) Wednesday, the procurator-general said that the
Chinese procuratorates would strictly enforce laws and strengthen
prosecution of serious crimes that threaten state security, social
order and the socialist market order and take an active part in the
combination of measures to improve law and order.
The top prosecutor also said that the procuratorial organs will
keep a close watch on criminal proceedings, civil case hearings and
administrative proceedings to see that the judgment is fair, the
judicial proceedings are not violated and the right of litigation
is not encroached upon and correct the outstanding problems
associated with prison term reduction, release on probation and
receiving medical treatment on probation, areas in which the people
have the most complaints.
Jia promised to do good preparations for revising the organic
law of the people's procuratorates, do a good job of instating the
people's supervisor system, prevent and correct cases of detention
beyond the prescribed time limit and ensure the normal practice of
lawyers in criminal proceedings.
Jia admitted that the procuratorates at all levels have not done
enough to check the problems of unfairness in the enforcement of
law and failure to implement law, thus allowing some corruption
cases that happened at the grassroots to go unpunished. There are
also cases of police officers violating law and discipline and
there are even cases of violating the law while enforcing the law,
Jia said.
Last year, the procuratorial organs in China corrected 22,575
cases that should but were not put on file for investigation;
removed the files of 2,552 cases that should not be put on file for
investigation; disapproved 58,872 arrests that did not conform to
the law provisions; and canceled the prosecution of 27,957 cases
that were not serious enough for prosecution. In criminal
proceedings, prosecutors protested against the ruling of 2,906
cases they deem misjudged. They also proposed in writing to correct
the judgment of 9,518 cases that they deemed the litigation rights
of the parties concerned were violated, according to Jia.
In civil and administrative procedures, procuratorial organs
also protested against the rulings of 13,120 cases involving the
rights and interests of peasant-workers in cities and laid-off
workers and advanced proposals for re-hearing and re-prosecution on
3,316 cases.
China has instituted the "people supervisor" system on the trial
basis to oversee procuratorial organs in their decisions of
canceling prosecution of cases and arrests. The system has been
tried in 10 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. So
far, 4,944 people have been recommended to be "people's
supervisors". The system has proved that law enforcement has become
more transparent.
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2004)
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