As the capital's judicial supervision authority, the No 1 Branch of the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate has adopted a system to supervise itself and to guarantee the quality of justice meted out in its cases.

According to Chinese laws, procuratorate organs are responsible for the public prosecution of criminal cases and investigating crimes that public servants are suspected of committing.

A special office for judicial oversight was established at the procuratorate with four experienced prosecutors, the Beijing News has reported.

So far, more than 10 cases have been examined by the office through the end of last month to supervise the quality of the lawsuits.

Various problems were discovered in the cases. For example, the lawsuit files were irregular, which caused supervision of prosecutors' work to be lacking.

Meanwhile, through supervision, public security departments that are found to be neglectful in their duties in some cases may be subject to action.

After being placed on file for investigation by the public security authority, three homicide cases were dropped by the procuratorate.

"The cases lacked important evidence due to careless investigative work at the sites by public security departments," a source within the procuratorate said.

In a homicide case that occurred in Beijing's Changping District in 2002, 34-year-old suspect Niu Yinghua was arrested by the Changping District Bureau of Public Security.

But later the Changping District People's Procuratorate decided not to prosecute Niu due to a lack of evidence.

Sources with the procuratorate informed the public security bureau that the on-the-spot reconnaissance failed to look for important evidence: fingerprints.

(China Daily July 22, 2004)