Learning from the Supreme Leader’s Thought of Rule of Law and Strengthening Legal Supervision in the New Era

If you open the column,　Great ideas lead great practice. In the process of continuous innovation and development of the supreme leader’s thought of rule of law, the the Supreme People’s Procuratorate Party Group has always aligned the supreme leader’s thought of rule of law with the major decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, and gradually formed a series of new concepts of procuratorial work in the new era, guiding the continuous innovation and development of procuratorial work in the new era. This newspaper will launch "Learning the Supreme Leader’s Thought of Rule of Law   Strengthening legal supervision in the new era "column, reporting the positive practice and achievements of procuratorial organs at all levels in implementing the supreme leader’s rule of law thought in an all-round and multi-angle way.

Looking back on the development history of procuratorial suggestions in the past 66 years, procuratorial suggestions have been closely related to social governance in the name of legal supervision since its birth.

● After retiring for many years, the Procurator-General of Huang Huoqing left a poem: "The communist ideal has been sworn, how can it stand by?" This is the values of the older generation of prosecutors, and it is also the original intention of the procuratorial suggestions to be reborn. When we find problems in handling cases, we should point them out. We cannot and should not turn a blind eye and keep silent.

● Wang Guiwu, an expert in procuratorial theory, thinks: "Because of the combination of handling cases and procuratorial suggestions, the energy of handling cases has been spread to all aspects within our power, and the social and political effects of handling cases have been brought into full play, which has found a good way to overcome the change of style of handling cases in isolation."

● the Supreme People’s Procuratorate sent the "No.1 Procuratorial Proposal" to the Ministry of Education for the first time, which aroused great concern in the society and opened a new period in the development history of procuratorial suggestions.

● The "legal dividend" brought by the improvement of the legal system in the fields of civil, administrative and public interest litigation to the development of procuratorial suggestions is amazing.

In the summer of 2020, the sun is passionate. Liaoning Anshan passenger station, the sea of people fluctuates, even heavy luggage can disappear into the crowd in an instant, and the sign of eliminating evil is still hanging in the corner, which is peaceful and harmonious. More than a year ago, it was like an absurd story novel: the "black boss" was bullying, the "underground law enforcement team" was parading through the city, and passengers and drivers were miserable.

On June 4, 2019, Anshan City Procuratorate discovered the problem of "black order" in the passenger station when examining the case of Luo Moumou and other 23 people suspected of organizing, leading and participating in underworld organizations, seeking trouble and extortion, and then issued procuratorial suggestions to the transportation department on passenger traffic management, and a vigorous passenger traffic rectification began. In August 2020, this procuratorial proposal was selected as "2019 Excellent Procuratorial Proposal for Social Governance of National Procuratorial Organs".

At that time, Liu Zhong, the head of the comprehensive management team of Anshan Procuratorate and an expert in procuratorial business in Liaoning Province, witnessed the introduction, promotion and follow-up supervision of this excellent procuratorial proposal. The senior prosecutor holds a 67-page PPT courseware of "Development and Practice of Procuratorial Suggestions", which contains a lot of historical content.

Looking back on the development history of procuratorial suggestions in the past 66 years, procuratorial suggestions have been closely related to social governance in the name of legal supervision since its birth. Especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, procuratorial organs have thoroughly implemented a series of important instructions of the Supreme Leader General Secretary on the construction of the rule of law, always adhered to the people-centered principle in procuratorial suggestions, focused on solving outstanding problems in the field of the rule of law, and promoted the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity on the track of the rule of law, which has always shown a vigorous and endless vitality.

How did all this happen?

Introduction: late relief cotton-padded clothes and the death of Wang fool

How was the death of fool Wang discovered? No one remembers it, but it caused a stir in Tianjinwei in 1955.

Fool Wang is a bachelor in Shuangkou Township, a northern suburb. He doesn’t even have a formal name and lives on government relief. The village has heard that relief cotton-padded clothes will be distributed since half a month ago, but it has never been distributed. Near the winter solstice, it’s freezing, and Wang Fool wears thin clothes. Sometimes he stays at the door, and sometimes he sleeps on the floor in the house. On December 17th, the fourth day of the 11th lunar month, there was no reed in the heavy snow. Fool Wang finally got the relief cotton-padded clothes from the township government, but he failed to survive this winter and was frozen to death.

The death of Wang Fool attracted many rumors, which attracted the attention of Tianjin Procuratorate. On September 29, 1956, the Municipal Procuratorate instructed the Northern Suburb Procuratorate to investigate the cause of Wang Shazi’s death due to freezing. A prosecutor named Jin Bingqi accepted this task. After going to the countryside for investigation, he wrote a "Proposal of Tianjin Northern Suburb People’s Procuratorate" and sent it to the Civil Affairs Section of the Northern Suburb People’s Committee:

According to the Civil Affairs Bureau’s 1955 plan to strengthen the winter relief work, the relief cotton-padded clothes were required to be basically delivered to the rescued people by the end of November, but your department delivered them to the rescued people on December 17th, with a delay of about 20 days. After the delivery, you did not carefully check and lacked serious and responsible education for rural cadres. Although the relief was delivered, it lacked relief effect from the perspective of Wang Fool’s problem. I hope you can implement the policy instructions issued by your superiors in a timely and effective manner.

A week after the proposal was issued, Jin Bingqi got the Inspection of Freezing to Death by replying to the letter from the People’s Committee of the North Suburb. Firstly, the paper explained the distribution of relief cotton-padded clothes and said:

We think that Shuangkou Township failed to implement the superior policy in time to solve the problem of cotton-padded clothes for relief households, so it does not meet the requirements of the city and district, which is worth checking and correcting.

In addition, we think that the areas pointed out in your college’s proposal have not been carefully inspected after distribution, and there is a lack of serious and responsible education for townships and village cadres. For the lack of inspection below, our subjective attention to relief work is not enough. It is very poor to urge and help townships to do this work in time, which has caused losses, which should be taken as a warning. In addition to the in-depth inspection of this work, we have dispatched cadres to the townships to inspect the relevant relief work, and focused on helping and urging township cadres to do this work well to ensure that this kind of situation will not happen again.

Time flies, prosecutor Jin Bingqi has passed away, and the file of Wang Fool’s freezing death case has been sleeping, and no one has disturbed it.

However, the wheel of history is rolling forward, and every neglected footprint has promoted the pace of social progress. Sixty-four years later, these two yellowed handwritten documents were discovered by Beichen District Procuratorate (changed to Beichen District after the northern suburb) and reported to Tianjin Procuratorate.

Everyone who has read this yellowed handwritten file is amazed. This procuratorial proposal shows the concept of rule of law, humanistic care and legal supervision beyond the times.

According to Min Zhong, director of the People’s Procuratorate Museum, this is a typical case in which procuratorial organs used proposals to correct violations, safeguard the rights and interests of the masses, and safeguard the unified implementation of the Constitution and laws in the 1950s. "In this case, the procuratorial organ investigated the reasons behind Wang Fool’s abnormal death, found out that the relevant departments violated policies and laws in relief work, made a proposal, and urged the relevant departments to perform their duties according to law and improve their work. In 1950s, Tianjin was the largest and most prosperous industrial and commercial city in the north, and the procuratorial system and business construction were also carried out earlier, which gained good experience. This case can be seen. "

Through the wall of time, we can still see a lot of work content about procuratorial suggestions by browsing the website of Beichen District Procuratorate today. In order to serve the overall situation and promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, procuratorial suggestions have consistently contributed to procuratorial wisdom.

Then, why did the procuratorate intervene in the incident that Wang Fool died of freezing 64 years ago? What is the legal basis for the Northern Suburb Procuratorate to issue this proposal to the Civil Affairs Section of the Northern Suburb People’s Committee?

Germination: distinctive characteristics of the times

The origin of every legal system stems from the internal social needs, is based on the normative legal text, and is attributed to the practice of legal organs.

In 2019, the 70th anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Supreme People’s Procuratorate Information Office began to mobilize procuratorates at all levels to look for outstanding procuratorial suggestions in the past 70 years. However, the pursuit of history is too difficult.

In the early days of the founding of People’s Republic of China (PRC), except for some preliminary explorations in judicial practice in the revolutionary base areas, the procuratorial work was poor. Luo Ronghuan, the first Procurator-General of the Republic, pointed out at the beginning of his tenure: "The work of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (which was changed into a hospital in 1954) is a brand-new work. First of all, we should formulate an outline of the work organization of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, set up an organization as soon as possible and start work." In this case, drawing lessons from the Soviet procuratorial system, which has similarities in ideology and national conditions, has become the mainstream view.

The historical origin of procuratorial proposal can be traced back to the end of 1954. A document issued by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate stipulated three forms of supervision, namely, proposal, petition and protest. Among them, the proposal is used to put forward corrective opinions to the state organs or departments at the same level.

Looking back on the proposals made in the 1950s, they are all very exploratory, covering a wide range of fields, and have quite distinct characteristics of the times.

For example, on January 27, 1955, the staff of the Procuratorate of Hebei Province went to Dingxian County and heard people complain that "the food supply is insufficient, it is not enough to eat, and the supply standards are different."……",Ding County Procuratorate sent inspector Wang Yunshan to investigate, and put forward a proposal to Ding County Finance Committee in the name of Attorney General Han Linsan and Deputy Attorney General Li Hanzhang and Xue Baoshu. This is in line with the background of the times when it was necessary to ensure the normal operation of people’s production and life in the early days of the founding of the Republic. Its purpose is to ensure the realization of the policy of unified purchase and marketing of grain and to fight against illegal acts that undermine the grain policy.

It is an important duty of procuratorial organs to supervise the relevant organs and state functionaries to act according to law and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the people. Procuratorial organs, in combination with handling cases, will also put forward supervision and correction opinions in the form of proposals for illegal problems found in handling cases.

For example, in March 1956, the procuratorate of Huinong County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region found that rural cadres used their powers to arrest and detain citizens indiscriminately, and issued a proposal to the county people’s committee. The County People’s Committee attached great importance to it, and issued the proposal and the regulations on arrest and detention to the township governments in all districts to correct the illegal acts of rural cadres. This attitude of resolutely fighting against violations of law and discipline has undoubtedly played an important role in consolidating the party’s new political power.

Procuratorial supervision is also an early business area that used the proposal to carry out supervision work, and many provinces have related cases. For example, in 1957, the Procuratorate of Shiquan County, Shaanxi Province sent a proposal to the Public Security Bureau of Shiquan County, which aimed at the outstanding problems in the management of detention centers, such as lax discipline and chaotic management, especially in the protection of human rights, and actively urged rectification.

……

Not only is it rich in content, but also there are some bright spots in the proposal of the 1950s.

Yan Xiaodong, Propaganda Department of Liaoning Provincial Procuratorate, organized the work of searching for procuratorial suggestions in the history of the province, and they unearthed four proposals during the exploration period of socialist construction road in Liaoning Provincial Archives. Compared with the handwritten proposals of grass-roots institutes, the four proposals issued in 1955 and 1956 were printed in type, and three of them were vertical versions, which had a unified format specification. The title of all proposals is "Proposal of the People’s Procuratorate of Liaoning Province", the title is "Proposal to Correct the Reasons for the Illegal Activities of a certain person", and the document number is indicated below. The text details the reasons for the issuance of the proposal and the specific content of the proposal. The text is more than 2,000 words long, ending with "From this to a certain person", and finally the date of issuance and issuance is stamped with the seal of "People’s Procuratorate of Liaoning Province".

A noteworthy detail is that in the two procuratorial suggestions issued by the Liaoning Provincial Procuratorate in 1955, the signatures were directly signed by Attorney General Ruan Tu and Deputy Attorney General Wang Lie. Ruantu and Wang Lie were both old revolutionaries who joined the Party in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the Liberation War in the late 1930s. As the first and second leaders of the procuratorial organs in Liaoning Province at that time, they were able to directly sign and issue proposals, which shows the importance attached to this work at that time.

Touch these signatures and cross a tunnel. In 2018, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate sent the "No.1 Procuratorial Proposal" to the Ministry of Education for the first time, which aroused great concern in the society and opened a new period in the development history of prosecutorial suggestions.

Perhaps, history always confirms each other inadvertently. The so-called "Do not forget your initiative mind" has never been an empty talk, but has been deeply imprinted in the bone marrow veins of prosecutors from generation to generation.

Dust-laden: twists and turns in special times

From 1955 to the first half of 1957, the procuratorial system in New China flourished.

Min Zhong told reporters: "In the procuratorial work in the 1950s, proposals and petitions were widely used. For example, in the first half of 1956, the People’s Procuratorate of Shaanxi Province issued 371 proposals, 300 petitions and 107 reports to the Party Committee. Applicable situations include cases in which industrial and mining enterprises and capital construction units violate labor laws and operating rules, cases in which agricultural cooperatives violate agricultural demonstration articles of association, cases in which forest protection laws and farm animals are protected, cases in which public-private joint ventures violate tax laws and capitalist transformation policies, and cases in which cadres violate laws and regulations. "

"Proposals and petitions constitute the predecessor of today’s procuratorial suggestions on social governance, and proposals and petitions for correcting illegal activities in criminal investigation activities and labor reform work constitute the predecessor of today’s procuratorial suggestions for correcting illegal activities." Min Zhong concluded.

"Since the second half of 1957, under the guidance of’ Left’ ideology and legal nihilism, the development of procuratorial organs has been tortuous." "When the well-known catastrophe came, the procuratorial organs were revoked and the personnel were dismissed, and the procuratorial work, including the proposal, completely lost its soil and space." Liu Zhong told reporters.

"The development of anything is not smooth sailing." This famous saying of Marxism-Leninism has been verified in the development history of procuratorial suggestions.

Restart: How can we just sit on the sidelines?

Proposal No.3 of Cangxian Procuratorate in Hebei Province describes a surprising rape case.

On the evening of April 11th, 1986, Guo Fengqin, a woman, plugged in the door and went to bed early because of power failure in Tuncun village, Li Long. At about 10 o’clock, she suddenly heard a noise at the outside door in the gloom, and then a black shadow jumped into the back room and came at her. At this point, she was ready to "fight" ideologically. When the gangster just jumped down, she fought with the gangster.……The next day, according to the physical characteristics provided by Guo Fengqin, the public security organs caught the criminal suspect "Black Hammer". He learned that Guo’s husband had gone out and didn’t come home, which gave birth to evil thoughts. As a result, he attempted rape and fell into the French Open.

What is intriguing is that the description of the case process in this proposal is very vivid, and the part of the proposal seems to be chatting with ordinary people:

A peasant woman can resist the attack of a middle-aged strong man. Why did Guo Fengqin defeat the rapist?

We believe that there are several main reasons: First, when the gangsters came at her, she didn’t panic, didn’t fear, and dared to fight to the death. This makes up for the lack of physical strength and makes the attempt to commit a crime unsuccessful. Secondly, she skillfully used psychological tactics, that is, while fighting gangsters, she called for help, which not only attracted the attention of the surrounding areas and obtained support, but also posed a certain psychological threat to criminals. Because any crime is guilty and timid, afraid of the masses. Third, she dared to attack the deadly parts of the enemy decisively in the case of insufficient physical strength and unfavorable situation, and turned defeat into victory.

In order to further improve the consciousness of the broad masses of women comrades in fighting criminals, more powerful people have emerged to defeat criminals. We suggest that:

First, we should widely publicize the typical case of Guo Fengqin. Vigorously advocate the tenacious spirit of fighting criminals, and the majority of women learn to use legal weapons to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests, self-esteem, and strive to be the strong one to defeat criminals.

Two, to enable the majority of women to master some basic knowledge of defense and know how to defend against the weak links of criminals.……

Third, it is necessary to educate women to enhance their sense of social responsibility. Once they are bullied or infringed, they should report the case in time and actively assist the political and legal departments in catching criminals.……

Fourth, extensive legal education should be conducted on Women’s Day, so that women can understand that when public interests, personal and other rights of themselves or others are illegally violated, it is a legitimate right given to citizens by the Constitution to prevent, resist and fight back defensively. Only by actively fighting criminals can we be respected and respected by society.

This vivid and well-founded narrative style is not only a procuratorial proposal, but also a propaganda book on the rule of law. What is even more amazing is that the spirit of "the law can’t give in to lawlessness" reflected in the analysis of the causes of the case in the proposal and the concept of "encouraging citizens to defend themselves" highlighted in the proposal are completely consistent with the rule of law concept of activating the legitimate defense system in recent years.

How can the procuratorial proposal be reborn and release such fresh vitality?

"After the restoration and reconstruction of procuratorial organs in 1978, in order to realize the practical needs of comprehensive management of social security in cracking down on criminal cases that seriously endanger social security and economic crimes that undermine the socialist economic order, procuratorial organs began to use the form of procuratorial suggestions to put forward suggestions for improvement on the problems existing in the implementation of policies, laws, rules and regulations of the case-making units, plug loopholes and prevent the occurrence of illegal and criminal acts." Min Zhong introduced.

In fact, after ten years of turmoil, people’s desire for rational rules and stable order made the rule of law become an important way of comprehensive social governance again. Chen Guoqing, Deputy Procurator-General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, once talked about the background and value of the rebirth of procuratorial suggestions in his paper: "In 1981, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China put forward the policy of comprehensive management of social security, requiring local party committees, governments and judicial organs to take political, legal, economic, administrative and educational comprehensive measures to prevent and reduce the occurrence of crimes. Procuratorial suggestions are one of the important measures. "

Under such circumstances, on December 6, 1982, Huang Huoqing, the third procurator-general of the Republic, made a report on the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s work at the fifth plenary session of the Fifth National People’s Congress, saying:

In the process of rectifying social order, many grass-roots procuratorates have also cooperated with public security and judicial departments to strengthen grass-roots organizations and work, and supported the broad masses of cadres and people in their struggle against illegal crimes. Moreover, extensive publicity on the legal system has been carried out to help the masses establish public security conventions and village rules and regulations, so that cadres and the masses can consciously abide by state laws and social ethics. Procuratorial organs at all levels have also handled cases, made timely suggestions on the loopholes in the management of some organs, enterprises and institutions, and helped the case-causing units to take measures, improve the system and strengthen management, which has played a certain role in preventing illegal crimes.

This is the first time that the procuratorial proposal has been written into the work report of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and submitted to the highest organ of state power.

After retiring for many years, the Procurator-General of Huang Huoqing once wrote a poem: "The communist ideal has been sworn, so how can we just sit on the sidelines?" This is the values of the older generation of prosecutors, and it is also the original intention of the procuratorial suggestions to be reborn. When we find problems in handling cases, we should point them out. We cannot and should not turn a blind eye and keep silent.

In 1983, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued a document stipulating the basic format of procuratorial suggestions, indicating that the application of procuratorial suggestions at that time was quite common and needed unified norms.

Wang Guiwu, a pioneer of procuratorial theory, pointed out in his book On Procuration that "procuratorial suggestions have achieved good social effects and promoted the’ comprehensive management’ of social security, which has been widely recognized and praised by the society and attracted the attention of state power organs."

Chen Pixian, then vice chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), pointed out in the report of the National Political and Legal Conference on January 21, 1985: "Procuratorates and courts should find problems in the work and system of relevant units through handling cases, actively put forward judicial suggestions, promote rectification, improve the system and plug loopholes. For units that do not pay attention to judicial advice, some should use public opinion to criticize and cause serious consequences, and the relevant leaders should be held accountable. " Some local people’s congresses have even formulated local legal documents to strengthen procuratorial suggestions. For example, in 1985, the First People’s Congress of Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province issued the Decision on Attaching Importance to the Role of Procuratorial and Judicial Suggestions, requiring relevant departments to give a written reply to procuratorial suggestions within one month.

From then on to 2002, procuratorial suggestions entered a relatively stable development period and quietly entered the category of social governance.

Development: It comes from individual cases and returns to the public interest.

In the whole development history of procuratorial suggestions, there is always a question: government departments and social institutions have their own duties, why do you have more suggestions from procuratorial organs?

It comes from individual cases and returns to the public interest, which is one of the answers that can be summarized by looking at the procuratorial proposals from the end of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century.

Procuratorial organs, when performing the function of legal supervision, especially when prosecutors examine and prosecute cases, can deeply understand various gray or even black areas of society and their hidden rules, and can put forward rectification suggestions to the crime unit and relevant departments accordingly. Therefore, for quite some time, procuratorial suggestions were regarded as an expansion of procuratorial functions, and the problems found in handling cases were promptly fed back and informed to relevant government departments and social institutions.

For example, Wang Guiwu, an expert in procuratorial theory, thinks: "Because of the combination of handling cases and procuratorial suggestions, the energy of handling cases has been spread to all aspects within our power, and the social and political effects of handling cases have been brought into full play, which has found a good way to overcome the work style of handling cases in isolation."

Learning from the past, the role of procuratorial organs has also been recognized by the central authorities. For example, in August, 1998, the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Social Security "Notice on the Responsibilities and Tasks of Member Units Participating in Comprehensive Management" will put forward suggestions on crime prevention in combination with "analyzing and mastering the characteristics of duty crimes, economic crimes and other criminal crimes in various periods and industries"; Promote relevant departments to establish and improve rules and regulations, plug loopholes, and improve preventive mechanisms "as a task to deploy and arrange for procuratorial organs.

"Procuratorial suggestions are rooted in the judicial functions of procuratorial organs, and the contents involved are of public interest and produced through legal procedures. They are serious and authoritative and should be effective in a wider range of fields." Zhang Jianwei, a professor at Tsinghua University Law School, said in an interview.

Under the background of China’s rapid economic development and social development, this kind of observation and suggestion from the perspective of procuratorial work not only has long-term focus areas, but also shows distinct characteristics of keeping pace with the times.

One: escort economic development

Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, "taking economic construction as the center" has penetrated into every corner of social life. China’s economy is always running in the fast lane, and people’s desire for material and money is unprecedented, but various social management systems are still being established.

Since 1980s, there have been more and more criminal cases related to economic development, such as tax evasion and major liability accidents, and there are often loopholes in the system behind extreme criminal cases.

For example, in 1988, when handling a tax evasion case, the Procuratorate of Kunming City, Yunnan Province found that the local policy was inconsistent with the national policy, so it asked the provincial and municipal tax bureaus to clearly explain the procuratorial suggestions on the demarcation of the policy of levying or exempting construction tax in sanatoriums. In the view of the Yunnan Provincial Procuratorate, "this expansion from case prevention to advising tax authorities to clean up similar phenomena is a typical case of maintaining the unity of the national legal system. The procuratorial suggestions are fluent, detailed, reasoned and accurate, fully demonstrating the value of legal supervision by procuratorial organs in the overall situation of social governance."

Major liability accident is a concern of many procuratorates.

For example, in 1986, a fire broke out in Tangqiao Theater in Shazhou County, Jiangsu Province. After the case, Shazhou County Procuratorate (the predecessor of Zhangjiagang Procuratorate) issued procuratorial suggestions to Tangqiao Township Government, electrical installation team and theater.

In 1995, a "5.13" catastrophic fire accident occurred in the timber storage plant of Ganhe Forestry Company in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. After the investigation of the case ended, the Oroqen Autonomous Banner Procuratorate issued a procuratorial proposal, suggesting that Ganhe Forestry Company should give disciplinary sanctions to eight people respectively.

On December 23, 2003, a serious blowout accident occurred in Luojia 16H well in Kaixian County (now Kaizhou District), Chongqing, which killed 243 people, injured more than 4,000 people, and evacuated nearly 100,000 people in the disaster area overnight, causing huge economic losses to the country. On the basis of investigating and dealing with related crimes according to law, Chongqing Procuratorate put forward suggestions to Sichuan Petroleum Administration Bureau, the competent authority, such as further enhancing safety awareness, improving various rules and regulations, and strengthening the qualification examination and training assessment of technicians.

……

Looking through the original text of these procuratorial suggestions, the reporter found that there were not only issues, but also feedback. For example, after receiving the procuratorial suggestions, Sichuan Petroleum Administration Bureau organized the theme safety education activities in time, cleared out more than 200 standards, systems and norms that did not meet the needs of the development situation, revised and improved 30 systems and norms, and conducted training for front-line staff.

The person in charge of the Legal and Policy Research Office of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate believes that the procuratorial organs’ high attention to major liability accidents reflects that "putting people’s lives and property safety first" is not an empty talk. The procuratorial organs not only punish crimes, but also strive to prevent crimes and reduce the occurrence of safety liability accidents.

Second: Prevention of duty crimes

On September 12, 1987, People’s Daily published a communication report entitled "The Arrest of Jiang Zhengguo, a Great Corrupt Person".

Jiang Zhengguo is the chief of the Finance Department of Wujin County (now Wujin District) Fertilizer Plant in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province. He used more than 20 methods, such as falsely listing special funds and special project expenditures, falsely increasing bank deposits and expenditures, falsely reducing bank deposit income and altering forged bills, to commit more than 200 crimes, and the amount of corruption was nearly 1.3 million yuan, which was a figure that shocked the whole country 30 years ago.

When Wujin County Procuratorate handled the case, it issued a procuratorial suggestion to Wujin Fertilizer Plant, suggesting that the plant establish relevant rules and regulations to plug the criminal loopholes. It is worth mentioning that the reporter found that the original file of this procuratorial proposal includes not only the original proposal, but also the 20 pages related to the subsequent whole chapter establishment process.

In the 1980s and 1990s, corruption gradually became the focus of society, and procuratorial suggestions became an important starting point for the prevention of duty crimes by procuratorial organs.

In particular, on October 30, 1992, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued the Notice on Strengthening the Prevention of Corruption and Bribery Crimes, demanding that "in combination with handling cases, targeted procuratorial suggestions be put forward to help the crime-causing units sum up experiences and lessons, improve management and strengthen prevention, especially to take measures to promote the establishment of an effective restraint mechanism for preventing corruption and bribery crimes in law enforcement departments and positions that directly control people, money and materials".

In this context, at that time, procuratorial organs all over the country attached great importance to feeding back the problems found in handling corruption cases to the case-issuing units in the form of procuratorial suggestions.

For example, in 2012, the First Branch of Beijing Procuratorate first issued a procuratorial suggestion to the Ministry of Health on the problems found in the process of handling the bribery case of Zhang Minyuan, former deputy director of the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health attached great importance to this, and three ministerial leaders of the Ministry of Health at that time gave special instructions on this procuratorial suggestion. In the same period, the hospital also issued similar case procuratorial suggestions to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on the problems found in eight cases involving job-related crimes in the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, such as Yuxin Liu, deputy director of the Department of Construction Market Supervision of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and put forward rectification suggestions on the problems existing in business management, industry management, cadre management and work style construction, especially the qualification certification of construction enterprises.

Third: Keep an eye on the safety of the supervision place.

Life in the "big wall" has always been very mysterious to the general public. For prison prosecutors, this is their daily battlefield, and everything needs to be transparent and open. In order to supervise the safety of places, they even have to adopt the tactics of "urgent marking", and the content of "marking" is varied.

As small as what prisoners eat. For example, in 1992, the Xinhua District Procuratorate in Yichun, Jiangxi Province found that there were loopholes and hidden dangers in the management of financial files and canteen procurement in the fourth reform-through-labour detachment of Jiangxi Province when handling the corruption case of Zhang Shaohong, the cashier of the fourth reform-through-labour detachment of Jiangxi Province, so it issued a comprehensive management procuratorial proposal to the detachment to strengthen the management of financial files and material procurement and to transfer the parties involved in the case from their financial posts. The proposal was personally signed by Zhou Xiaolin, then the chief procurator of the hospital, and Yuan Jiali, the detachment leader of the Fourth Reform-through-Labor Detachment of Jiangxi Province, personally signed the reply.

It involves the safety of prisons and other places of supervision. For example, at the beginning of 2014, the procurator of the supervision office of Luzhai District Procuratorate in Liuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region found in the supervision and inspection of the daily supervision activities of the supervision places that prisoners in individual prison areas of Guizhong Prison carried their mobile phones into the prison through migrant workers outside the prison. After investigation and verification, the Luzhai District Procuratorate issued procuratorial suggestions to Guizhong Prison in combination with two cases of joint corruption of prison staff and prisoners handled by the hospital in 2013. After the procuratorial suggestion was issued, Guizhong Prison quickly carried out a major investigation of potential safety hazards, timely "filled in leaks", improved the regulations on the management of foreign personnel, strengthened the supervision of detainees, strengthened the duty education and preventive education for prison staff, and ensured the safety of prison supervision places.

Fourth: Respond to the examination questions of the times and pay attention to the new economic form.

In 1999, Ma Huateng began to launch QQ chat software. In 2003, Ma Yun established Taobao. In 2013, Meituan’s takeaway brother was born. In 2018, China’s express delivery industry exceeded 50 billion.……In the first 20 years of the new century, the Internet swept through every detail of China people’s lives with lightning speed, and the new economic form with the Internet as the carrier constantly tested the country’s economic management and social governance level.

How do procuratorial organs respond to the examination questions of the times?

In 2014, the Procuratorate of Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province found that criminal cases involving guns and explosions, selling fake and inferior products, selling drugs and so on, which were derived from the regulatory defects of express logistics industry, increased year by year, and the possibility of using express logistics as a transportation channel for terror tools was rising.

The institute sent procuratorial suggestions on social governance to seven units, including local logistics office and e-commerce office, assisted the Party committee and government to set up the Postal Administration, the first express logistics supervision department in county-level cities in China, and urged the gradual establishment of a strict inspection system for express delivery and real-name registration system. Relevant suggestions were absorbed by the Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of Public Security Prevention and Control System issued by the State Council of China, and were transformed into 100% express delivery inspection, express delivery real-name registration system and X-ray machine security inspection system, which played an important role in G20 Summit and world internet conference security work.

The new economic model also has an important impact on the judiciary itself, such as electronic evidence. At the beginning of 2018, the Procuratorate of Jinshan District of Shanghai carried out special inspections on cases involving electronic evidence transferred by public security organs in the district in the past two years, sorted out and analyzed the problems existing in the collection, extraction, transfer and display of electronic evidence, and made a list of problems, combing more than 30 problems in five categories in combination with specific cases. For the problems found, we will analyze the causes of the problems together with the Legislative Affairs Office of the District Public Security Bureau, and jointly study the solutions. On this basis, we will put forward feasible and operational solutions.

Predictably, in the context of the Internet, the emerging process of new economic forms is bound to be accompanied by various problems, and procuratorial suggestions can also reflect more of their own value.

Fifth: Pay attention to minors.

On February 4th, 2015, the first civil affairs department in China applied to revoke the judgment of the custody case, thus the concept of national custody of minors was the first in judicial practice, and it was a procuratorial suggestion from the tongshan district Procuratorate in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province that promoted this case.

It turned out that the tongshan district Procuratorate accepted a rape case in 2013. A little girl under the age of ten was sexually assaulted, molested and beaten by her biological father.……In the end, the court sentenced the father to 11 years in prison for rape and deprived him of political rights for one year. Zhang Hong, the case handler, was thinking: "Can the law only do this? This problem has always been like a stone in my heart. " On January 5, 2015, tongshan district Procuratorate issued a procuratorial proposal to the District Civil Affairs Bureau, suggesting that the District Civil Affairs Bureau, as the applicant, file a lawsuit to the court to revoke the custody of the little girl’s parents. Two days later, the District Civil Affairs Bureau filed a complaint with the District Court, applying to revoke the custody of her parents according to law and appoint another suitable guardian.

This case successfully activated the "zombie clause" of revoking custody, and was written into the white paper "Progress of Human Rights in China in 2014" by the State Council Information Office. It was successively awarded the Top Ten Cases of Judicial Protection of Minors in China and the Top Ten Cases of Protecting the Rights and Interests of Women and Children in China according to law, which was called a "milestone" event in the process of protecting minors in China.

In fact, the protection of minors’ rights and interests has always been an important part of the work of criminal prosecution departments, and many typical representatives such as "unchecked sisters" and "unchecked mothers" have emerged. Before the Supreme People’s Procuratorate set up a separate juvenile procuratorate office, many grass-roots procuratorates tried to set up a "juvenile crime handling team" in the public prosecution department to judge the phenomenon of juvenile crime.

For example, when the Procuratorate of Ding ‘an County of Hainan Province handled a criminal case of 11 evil gangs headed by Du Moumou, the unchecked department found that the suspects in the case were all teenagers born after 1990 and 00 except Du Moumou, and 8 of them were under 18 years old when they committed the crime. The procuratorate made a statistical analysis of juvenile delinquency in Ding ‘an County since 2017, and issued procuratorial suggestions to the Education Bureau of Ding ‘an County, in order to comprehensively improve the legal awareness of primary and secondary school students in Ding ‘an County, strengthen campus safety and prevent juvenile delinquency.

Sixthly: incarnate as a public interest spokesman.

In the procuratorial system, to measure the success of a case, prosecutors usually have a mantra: to achieve "organic unity of political effect, legal effect and social effect."

Where is the social effect? Who will judge? The answer is only the masses. The judgment of the masses has never been based on "mouth", but on the details of life in food, clothing, housing and transportation.

There are thousands of roads, and safety comes first. In 2014, the Procuratorate of Taoshan District, qitaihe city City, Heilongjiang Province, found that among the drug addicts who were being forcibly isolated by the Anti-drug Detachment of the Municipal Public Security Bureau according to law, three of them held the motor vehicle driver’s license issued by the traffic police detachment of the Municipal Public Security Bureau but did not cancel it, and then issued a procuratorial proposal to the traffic police detachment of the qitaihe city Public Security Bureau, suggesting to perform the administrative duty of canceling the driver’s license of "three types of drug addicts". In 2015, the case was rated as a top-quality civil administrative procuratorial case by the national procuratorial organs. The procuratorial organs eliminated the hidden danger of "drug driving" by carrying out administrative law enforcement supervision, which provided a strong guarantee for the people to create a safe road traffic environment.

Health is the well-being of the people. In 2014, the Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate comprehensively summarized 107 cases of crimes endangering drug safety prosecuted by the city’s procuratorial organs from January 2012 to December 2013, issued procuratorial suggestions to the Chongqing Food and Drug Administration, and deeply analyzed the purchase and sale of counterfeit drugs in different places through mail order, telephone, television, online shopping and other channels, and provided cover for the sale of counterfeit drugs by contracting hospital departments, calling pharmaceutical companies, renting counters of chain pharmacies, etc. In rural areas, pharmacies and traveling doctors produce and sell counterfeit drugs and pass health care products off as drugs, which endanger drug safety. Four specific suggestions are put forward, such as strengthening daily supervision, strengthening rural drug supervision, doing a good job in special rectification and strengthening supervision capacity building.

Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. In 2018, the central government’s "Special Supervision on Environmental Protection of Urban Black and Odor Water Remediation" work, the Shanghai Chongming District Procuratorate found that three township governments in this district failed to perform their duties in river management, and 10 rivers in the three towns were seriously polluted by oil and black water. The indicators such as ammonia nitrogen, dissolved oxygen and transparency in water bodies were obviously not up to standard, and social public interests continued to be infringed. Chongming District Court initiated public interest litigation procedures according to law and established the "8.06" black and odorous river handling group. The procurator-general will lead the public interest litigation procurator to find out the responsibilities of villages and towns in river regulation in time, determine the main body of performing their duties, carry out related work, and make pre-litigation procuratorial suggestions to the three towns. Supervise the administrative organs to perform their duties by means of pre-litigation procuratorial suggestions, and promote the ecological environment management of the Yangtze River.

One by one, in the past two years, from ecological environment protection to food and drug safety, cultural heritage and national dignity protection, people’s food, clothing, housing and transportation have become the business areas of procuratorial organs.

Broadening: the "legal dividend" of realization

From the above types of development of procuratorial suggestions, it can be found that the contents of traditional procuratorial suggestions are mostly to prevent illegal crimes and remind relevant departments to strengthen the whole chapter system in handling criminal cases. The cases after 2010 involve a much broader scope.

In fact, although procuratorial suggestions were established as a way of civil and administrative litigation supervision in the Rules for Handling Civil Administrative Protest Cases of People’s Procuratorates promulgated by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate in 2001, they are always in a cautious exploration state because of the lack of national legal support.

This situation was completely changed in 2012.

The revised Civil Procedure Law in 2012 formally defined "procuratorial suggestions" as a statutory supervision method, which means that the supervision form of procuratorial suggestions in civil litigation supervision has changed from practical exploration to legal system. In terms of data performance, the number of civil procuratorial suggestions has exploded since 2013. In that year, the national procuratorial organs issued 64,351 civil procuratorial suggestions, compared with 36,531 criminal procuratorial suggestions and 4,636 administrative procuratorial suggestions in the same year.

In June 2017, the newly revised Administrative Procedure Law established the important position of procuratorial suggestions in administrative public interest litigation, which marked that procuratorial suggestions ushered in a new development opportunity. The number of administrative procuratorial suggestions has increased explosively from 3,167 in 2016 to 35,923 in 2017, the highest in the past years. In 2018, procuratorial suggestions before administrative public interest litigation began to be counted separately, reaching 23,356 in that year and 103,076 in 2019.

Looking at the leopard in the tube, the data speaks, and the improvement of the legal system in the fields of civil, administrative and public interest litigation brings the "legal dividend" to the development of procuratorial suggestions, which is amazing. Since then, procuratorial suggestions have been widely expanded in the application field, ending the history of "walking on one leg". In 2018, more than 250,000 procuratorial suggestions were issued nationwide, almost twice as many as in 2017, and the number of criminal, civil and administrative procuratorial suggestions was almost equal.

2020, a new historical intersection. Standing on the new era coordinates, procuratorial organs thoroughly implement the supreme leader’s thought of rule of law, give full play to the function of legal supervision, cast their vision into a broader space, discover more plasticity and possibility of procuratorial suggestions, and bring more "legal dividends" to the broader people.

(Reporter Zhang Yu of Fiona Fang)