Procuratorates crack down on abuses

Procuratorates have intensified their efforts to ensure the integrity of the judicial system, initiating legal measures against 1,976 judicial staff last year for crimes such as dereliction of duty, abuse of power and coercion, which were discovered through judicial supervision, said the top procuratorate's annual work report.

The work report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate was delivered by SPP Procurator-General Ying Yong on March 8 to the second session of the 14th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, for review. It was approved by the NPC on March 11.

Among these cases, 150 involved individuals holding positions at or above the division level. In terms of charges, five types of crimes, including dereliction of duty, abuse of power and favoritism, accounted for 75.9 percent of the total, according to a white paper on criminal prosecution work in 2023, issued by the SPP on March 9.

According to the Criminal Procedure Law, procuratorates can initiate investigations into crimes committed by judicial personnel, such as illegal detention, coercion to extract confessions and illegal searches, which infringe upon citizens' rights or undermine judicial justice, as discovered during their legal supervision of litigation procedures.

One case mentioned in the SPP's work report involved an incident in March 2013, in which four police officers, including Ma, the head of a prison unit in Gansu province, beat a prisoner to death and falsely claimed the death was due to illness.

Despite the victim's family repeatedly accusing them, investigations failed to uncover the truth. In April 2021, the SPP discovered this case during its interprovincial prison inspections and transferred it to the Gansu Provincial Procuratorate.

Later, Gansu's Baiyin Municipal Procuratorate was designated to conduct the investigation. The Baiyin procuratorate then uncovered the facts of the crime, leading to the prosecution of the four. In October 2023, the four were sentenced to imprisonment in the first instance.

Furthermore, procuratorates investigated 176 cases involving major crimes committed by personnel of State organs under the jurisdiction of public security departments, according to the work report.

The Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that, in major criminal cases involving abuses of power by the personnel of State organs under the jurisdiction of public security departments, procuratorates at the provincial level or above can decide to initiate investigations.

In another case mentioned in the work report, in June 2023, the public security bureau of a county in Hunan province requested the local procuratorate to participate in a extortion case.

Upon review, prosecutors found that from May 2021 to May 2022, Liu, deputy head of a local police station, abused his power and colluded with seven others to extort 357,000 yuan ($50,000) from a man surnamed Zheng and others.

Later, the Hunan Provincial Procuratorate decided to launch an investigation into Liu and the other seven individuals for suspected extortion.

As a result, Liu and other five others were prosecuted. Liu was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison, and the remaining five individuals received sentences ranging from one year and four months to seven years. The other two suspects are still undergoing prosecution.

Procuratorates have also deepened comprehensive and strict oversight of their own work. Last year, three officers from the SPP and 413 individuals from other procuratorial organs were investigated for disciplinary and legal violations. Among them, 78 individuals were prosecuted, a 20.4 percent decrease year-on-year.