Beijing Radio & Television Station:

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee has made major plans to comprehensively deepen judicial system reform. What measures have procuratorial organs taken to ensure the reform of the judicial responsibility system and the proper exercise of procuratorial power? What has been achieved? Thank you.

Tong Jianming:

I would like to invite Mr. Gao Jingfeng to answer your questions.

Gao Jingfeng:

Thank you for your questions. The judicial responsibility system plays a fundamental role in the reform of the judicial system and is what we must firmly focus on in deepening the reform. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the SPP has continued to consolidate and deepen reform measures such as the category-based management of procurators and the procurator responsibility system for handling cases and actively translated the achievements of reforming the judicial responsibility system into legislation. Some mature practices in this regard have been translated into the provisions of the Organic Law of the People's Procuratorates and the Procurator Law. At the same time, a series of systems for the selection, withdrawal, evaluation, accountability, and punishment of procurators have been established to ensure the implementation of the Organic Law of the People's Procuratorates and the Procurator Law, basically forming a supporting system for the reform of the judicial responsibility system. Procuratorates at all levels have earnestly implemented various working mechanisms and facilitated the smooth implementation of the new judicial mechanism for handling cases, showing new vigor and vitality in all procuratorial work. It is shown in the following aspects.

First, a virtuous circle has gradually formed in the team of prosecutors. The quota system for procurators has been implemented, and procurators are selected regularly. By the end of June this year, there were 69,000 quota-based procurators in procuratorial organs across the country. We implemented a merit-based system. Since 2018, more than 1,300 people have voluntarily quit their posts due to pressure from case handling, assessment, and personal reasons. More than 440 people have been dismissed because they failed the assessment.

Second, the primary role of procurators in judicial case handling has been more prominent. Through the reform of the judicial responsibility system, the principle of "those who handle a case and who decide to assume full responsibility for it" has been implemented, and the scope of powers and responsibilities of procurators, chief procurators, and procuratorial committees has been defined in the form of a list. Procurators exercise powers in accordance with the law within the scope and assume full responsibility for cases they handle. Their enthusiasm, sense of responsibility, and quality and efficiency in handling cases have been significantly improved. Of course, while delegating power, we also paid special attention to strengthening supervision and restraint, and by implementing rules for handling criminal, civil, administrative, and public interest litigation, we have further promoted the fair, standardized, and efficient exercise of procuratorial powers in accordance with the law.

Third, we have given full play to the role of leading officials. To ensure that leading officials, though few in number, play a key role in implementing the judicial responsibility system, the SPP has issued specialized guidelines which require qualified leading officials to handle cases and set a strict bar on the types, numbers, and standards of the cases. We stress that they must read case files. We have improved relevant mechanisms and set up a system for reporting information on leading officials directly handling cases. From 2019 to 2021, qualified leaders of procuratorial organs nationwide handled more than 1.88 million cases of various types, accounting for 11.8% of the total.

Fourth, we have further implemented the accountability system for miscarriages of justice. The Party leadership group of the SPP clearly stated that granting state compensation does not mean the completion of error correction, and the responsible entities must be held accountable. In 2021, the SPP conducted a comprehensive investigation of 246 retried criminal cases since 2018 and supervised the correction of 22 cases where the wrongly convicted had been in custody for 10 years or above to ensure the implementation of the accountability system.

Going forward, procuratorial organs will deepen the reform of the judicial accountability system and ensure that prosecutors more faithfully perform their duties to improve the quality and efficiency of the judicial system. Thank you.