People's procuratorates are organs for legal supervision in China. The state sets up the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government establish higher people's procuratorates that have under them intermediate and grassroots people's procuratorates.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate is the highest procuratorial organ in China. It is responsible to the NPC and its Standing Committee, and reports its work to them. The Supreme People's Procuratorate independently exercises the highest procuratorial power according to law and is not subject to interference by any administrative organ, social organization or individual.

According to the Constitution and statutes, the Supreme People's Procuratorate exercises the following functions and duties:

Leading the work of local people's procuratorates and special people's procuratorates at all levels;

Directly accepting and handling according to law the criminal cases involving corruption, bribery, tort regarding citizens' democratic rights and misconduct in office, placing them on file for investigation, and deciding whether to initiate prosecution or not;

Performing legal supervision over the judicial proceedings of courts and investigations of criminal cases;

Deciding on arrests and prosecution of major criminal cases according to law and performing legal supervision over the judicial activities in criminal cases;

Lodging protests according to law against effective but wrong judgments and rulings made by people's courts at various levels to the Supreme People's Court;

Exercising legal supervision over activities conducted in prisons and reform-through-labor institutions;

Providing judicial interpretations on questions concerning specific applications of laws in procuratorial work; and

Sponsoring negotiations with foreign procuratorial authorities for judicial assistance.

Work of the Last Supreme People's Procuratorate

Han Zhubin, then Procurator General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, delivered a report on the work of the Supreme People's Procuratorate to the First Session of the 10th NPC on March 11, 2003. During the five-year tenure of the Ninth NPC, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, under the supervision of the NPC and its Standing Committee, adhered to the principles of "upholding justice, enhancing supervision, handling cases according to law, being strict with construction of procuratorial ranks and serving the overall national interests." It seriously honored its duties entrusted by the Constitution and laws and made a considerable contribution to the country's socialist modernization drive.

In the five years, people's procuratorates throughout the country approved the arrest of a total of 3,601,357 criminal suspects and prosecuted 3,666,142, up 24.5 percent and 30.6 percent over the previous five-year period, respectively. In addition, a total of 207,103 cases of embezzlement, bribery, misappropriation of public fund and other functionary crimes were investigated, in which 5,541 cases involved more than 1 million yuan each and 12,830 officials at the county level and above were implicated. Since 2000, procuratorial and public security organs have taken joint actions, arresting 5,115 fugitives of functionary crimes and retrieving economic losses exceeding 22 billion yuan.

The procuratorial organs stepped up supervision of lawsuit proceedings and worked hard to safeguard judicial justice and the sanctity of the legal system. In the five years, they supervised and urged police to file up 36,955 cases in accordance with the law, approved the arrest of 50,863 suspects and lodged lawsuits against 25,297 suspects who had previously escaped punishment. In the meantime, they rejected the arrest of 466,357 people proven innocent and the prosecution of another 106,715 innocent people. They also lodged 61,162 disapproval documents concerning illegal investigation and judicial activities, safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of relevant parties.

In the five years, the Supreme People's Procuratorate signed cooperative agreements with procuratorial organs in 55 countries, and improved the mechanism for cooperating with relevant Hong Kong and Macao departments in case investigation. It promoted international cooperation in cracking down on terrorism and cross-border crimes through hosting the Regional Conference of Attorneys General of Countries in Asia and Europe and the Meeting of Procurators General of Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States. It also formulated 132 legal interpretations and conducted an overhaul of legal interpretations and regulatory documents promulgated since 1949.

Procurator General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate

The procurator general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate is elected by the NPC for a term of five years and can serve no more than two consecutive terms. The First Session of the 10th NPC elected Jia Chunwang as procurator general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on March 16, 2003.