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 to 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 of questions concerning special applications of laws in procuratorial work;

---Formulating regulations and by-laws concerning procuratorial work;

---Leading and administering the work of public procurators according to law;

---Organizing and guiding the education and training of officials with the procuratorial departments; and

---Sponsoring negotiations with foreign procuratorial departments for judicial assistance.

The current procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate is Han Zhubin.