The fifth series of comments on "New Chapter of Procuratorial Career" celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China
70 years have passed since the times of change. However, the responsibilities and missions of criminal procuratorial safeguarding national security and social stability have never changed, and the original intention of fighting crime and protecting the people have never changed.
From being born with the Republic in the early days of the founding of New China to prospering with the rule of law since the reform and opening up, criminal prosecution marks the historical span of the glorious development of the procuratorial cause of New China. This span stems from the natural background of criminal prosecutors' political attitude, the extraordinary courage to innovate, and the responsibility of criminal prosecutors to emphasize self-improvement.
From "three antis" and "five antis" to cracking down on gangs and eliminating evil: witnessing the political character of criminal prosecution serving the overall situation
After the founding of New China, according to Article 3 of the "Trial Organization Regulations of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of the Central People's Government" promulgated in December 1949, the powers of the procuratorate include "investigating criminal cases and prosecution", "procuring illegal measures to reform prisoners in judicial and public security organs in the country" and so on. With the promulgation and improvement of subsequent laws, by 1955, the criminal prosecution system in New China, covering trial supervision, public prosecution, criminal execution supervision, and investigation supervision, was basically established.
During this period, criminal prosecution work was mainly carried out around consolidating the regime. Since October 1950, the Communist Party of China has led the people of the whole country to carry out a large-scale suppression of counter-revolutionary movement. In February 1951, the Central People's Government promulgated the "Regulations on Punishing Counter-Revolutionary in the People's Republic of China", which was in the creation stage of criminal prosecution, "building while working", and devoted all its efforts to the "anti-revolutionary" movement. At the same time, the procuratorates in various places also participated in the "Three Antis" movement that began in late 1951 and the "Five Antis" movement that began in February 1952.
70 years of extraordinary years, the criminal prosecution was not only committed to safeguarding national security, but also focused on serving the overall work of the Party and the country, actively participated in the central work of various periods such as "severe crackdown", "severe punishment of economic crimes", " crackdown on gangs and evil ", "rectifying the socialist market economic order", "governing commercial bribery", "sweeping gangs and evil corruption", etc., giving full play to the role of accusation of crimes, actively resolving social conflicts, and building a safe and legal China.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and the people's needs for a better life are becoming increasingly extensive, and the requirements for security and other aspects are increasing. Safety is the basic requirement for people's happiness and well-being, the basic prerequisite for reform and development, and it is also a "rule of law product" that criminal prosecution must provide in the new era.
If the evil is not swept away, the society will be difficult to stabilize; if the evil is not eliminated, the people will be unable to rest. In January 2018, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Special Struggle to Crime and Eliminate Evil", deciding to carry out a three-year special Struggle to Crime and Eliminate Evil across the country. From "fighting gangs and eliminating evil" to "fighting gangs and eliminating evil", the change of one word has further highlighted the firm determination to eliminate gangs and evil forces.
criticized the arrest of 11,183 criminal suspects involved in gangs and prosecuted 10,361 criminal suspects involved in gangs, 62,202 criminal suspects involved in evil, and 50,827 criminal suspects were prosecuted; the gangs involved in Luoning's "Eighteen Brothers Association", Wenxi's "Hou Brothers", Baicheng Shi Miao and other criminal gangs who committed crimes and harmed the people were severely punished; they cracked down on the "protective umbrella" of crimes in gangs and evil forces, prosecuting 350 people... This is the report card of the national procuratorate's crackdown on gangs and eliminating evil in 2018.
"Adhere to the facts as the basis and the law as the criterion, it is not allowed to let go of any crime, and it is not a crime of crime, and it is not a crime of crime." This is the solemn promise of Zhang Jun, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Procurator General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, at this year's National People's Congress and the National People's Congress. In 2018, the investigative agency transferred the case for review and prosecution for gangs and evil forces, but the procuratorate did not recognize 9,154 cases; it did not transfer it for gangs and evil forces, and 2,117 cases were identified in accordance with the law.
From exploring and practicing to writing into the law: reflecting the wisdom and courage of self-optimization of criminal prosecution
If you want to do it well, you must first sharpen your tools.
pre-trial detention rate dropped from 50.5% in 2013 to 27.3% in 2017, and the arrest rate dropped from 95.9% in 2004 to 60.5% in 2017. This is the change brought by the pilot "integrated arrest and prosecution" to the criminal prosecution work of the Suzhou Industrial Park Procuratorate in Jiangsu Province; the highly-watched Changsheng vaccine case in 2018 took only 17 days from the public security organs' investigation to the review and prosecution. The "magic weapon" behind it is the early intervention of the "integrated arrest and prosecution" case handling team formed by the Procuratorate of Changchun High-tech Zone of Jilin Province in advance.
Criminal procuratorial case handling practices have made the answer to the multiple-choice question of "accusation and prosecution split" or "accusation and prosecution integrated" increasingly clear.
After the establishment of the New China Procuratorate, the criminal procuratorate experienced "dividing and breaking together": in 1949, the "Trial Organization Regulations of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of the Central People's Government" stipulated that the Supreme People's Procuratorate had three business departments, the second of which was responsible for the scope of public prosecution and arrest in criminal cases; in 1955, the Criminal Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate was divided into the OIOS office and the Judicial Supervision Office; in July 1962, it was "combined" into one department, responsible for reviewing and approving arrests and prosecutions; after the procuratorate was restored and rebuilt in 1978, it was still a "combined" Criminal Procuratorate; in 1999, it was divided into the OIOS office for reviewing and approving arrests and prosecutions.
Since 1999, criminal prosecution has divided into litigation procedures and managed by one section, which has affected and restricted the professionalization of criminal prosecution business to a certain extent.
More importantly, each prosecutor only participates in one litigation link or stage, and lacks a broad perspective on the entire litigation process of the case, which leads to the qualitative and quantitative understanding of the same case in different links due to different functional requirements, making it difficult to adapt to the actual needs of the reform of the trial-centered criminal litigation system.
In order to meet the higher requirements for criminal prosecution in the new era, it "focuses on cultivating professional ability and professional spirit" and adheres to "in principle, one department coordinates one thing, and in principle, one department is responsible for one thing"... On January 3 this year, the reformed internal organization of the Supreme People's Procuratorate "stunning" the public as soon as it was unveiled - implementing a "integrated arrest and prosecution" case handling mechanism: reorganize professional criminal case handling institutions according to the case type, and the same criminal case handling institution is specifically responsible for handling one or several types of criminal cases. The same prosecutor's case handling team or prosecutor is responsible for the review and arrest of the same criminal case, review and prosecutor of the same criminal case throughout the process, and is responsible for the review and arrest, review and prosecution of the same criminal case. It is necessary to support public prosecution and appeals, case filing supervision, investigation supervision, trial supervision and supplementary investigation of related cases, and is responsible for handling relevant criminal complaint cases under the jurisdiction of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
The self-optimization of criminal prosecution is not only reflected in internal adjustments, but also in external supervision such as criminal execution prosecution and necessity review of detention. The most prominent one is criminal execution prosecution.
What does prison prosecutor do? More than a year ago, many people might have answered: "The key is to supervise the prison 'can be collected, locked, and run away'." Now, everyone's answer has become: "Not only should we supervise the prison 'can be collected, locked, and run away', but we should also supervise the prison to transform criminals into law-abiding citizens." The change in the answer to
originated from the pilot project of circuit inspections.
From June 2018 to May 2019, the Supreme People's Procuratorate deployed a one-year prison circuit inspection pilot in the procuratorates of some provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country. The on-site inspection has improved the supervision sensitivity, thereby effectively avoiding problems such as prosecutors "creating corruption due to maturity" and "creating laziness due to maturity". In addition, the circuit inspection has strong mobility and flexibility, and can promptly discover and correct illegal problems that arise in practice, pay more attention to supervision of the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of the person under supervision, pay more attention to promoting the education and transformation of the person under supervision by prisons, and promote them to become law-abiding citizens. It is also because of this that the two procuratorial methods of circuit and dispatch for prisons were officially established by the Organization Law of the People's Procuratorate, which was revised in 2018. On July 1 this year, the prison circuit procuratorate was fully launched in procuratorates across the country.
From "selling dishes" to leading criminal proceedings: demonstrating the initiative of criminal prosecutors
For a long time, in criminal proceedings, the functions of criminal prosecutors are in the middle link and have received less attention, which has caused some people to jokingly call the public security "cooking dishes", the courts "eating dishes", and the procuratorate is "selling dishes". Is the status and role of criminal prosecution like this? The " Kunshan Anti-killing Case " and Fujian Zhao Yu cases that have attracted widespread attention gave the loudest answers.
"After the media disclosed the 'Kunshan Counter-killing Case', it guided the Jiangsu procuratorate to intervene in advance, put forward qualitative opinions on the case, supported the public security organs to withdraw the case, and released it publicly as a typical case of self-defense; guided the Fuzhou Municipal Procuratorate to determine that Zhao Yu's bravery infringement of the law was self-defense, and did not bear criminal responsibility in accordance with the law, and made it impossible to make concessions to illegal acts." On March 12 this year, Procurator General Zhang Jun delivered a work report on the Supreme People's Procuratorate in the Great Hall of the People. This short text caused two warm applause to burst into the scene.
The two typical cases mentioned by Prosecutor General Zhang Jun not only activate the legal provisions of legitimate defense, but also allowed the subsequent "Hebei Laiyuan Case", "Hangzhou Shengchunping Case", and " Xingtai Dong Mingang Case" to correctly apply legitimate defense, protecting the innocent, and at the same time eliminated people's prejudice that criminal prosecution is just a "dish-server".
fulfills its leading responsibilities and promotes the transformation and upgrading of criminal prosecution work, which is not only reflected in the determination of individual cases of self-defense, but also in the design of the system of lenient punishment for confession and acceptance of punishment.
From November 2016 to October 2018, according to the authorization of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the Supreme People's Procuratorate carried out pilot work on the lenient senility system for criminal cases in 18 cities including Beijing and Tianjin. The number of cases prosecuted in pilot areas that apply the lenient senility system for guilty plea and accept punishment accounted for about 50% of the total number of criminal cases prosecuted during the same period, most of which were recommended by the procuratorate to apply, and the average time for review and prosecution was shortened to 26 days.
On October 26, 2018, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the "Decision on Amending the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China", consolidating the results of judicial reform in the form of law, and establishing "plead guilty and lenient punishment" as an important system of the Criminal Procedure Law.
In March this year, Procurator General Zhang Jun said in his work report to the Supreme People's Procuratorate at the Second Session of the 13th National People's Congress that the procuratorate fully plays a leading role in handling cases of lenient punishment for admitting guilt and accepting punishment. 98.3% of the procuratorate recommends that the application of this procedure be heard, and the adoption rate of sentencing recommendations during the pilot period was 96%.
has the responsibilities and role of prosecutors in leading the consultation on confession, Shang Lunsheng, a member of the National People's Congress and president of the Gansu Lawyers Association, believes that the procuratorate has the right to connect the past and the future in criminal proceedings, and has the right to decide whether the procedure will continue, and also the right to finalize some cases. In cases where the lenient treatment system for guilty plea and accept punishment is applied, the procuratorate is in the position of initiator, leader and supervisor, and from the perspective of judicial practice, it has indeed played a leading role.
dry all day long, walking with the times. Standing at a new historical starting point, the national procuratorate will continue to improve and strengthen criminal procuratorial work with the ultimate spirit, and make due contributions to the comprehensive rule of law and the modernization of the social governance system and governance capabilities.
New Media Procuratorate
Text丨 Li Rui
Picture丨 from the Internet
Editing in this issue丨 Tian Hao
Planning | Wang Cuiyun Yang Jianhong
Producer | Xiao Fengzhen
Source | Procuratorial Daily
Contact (submission) Email | [email protected]
