The hangings in the corridors are all fixed, and the community can still see banners preaching relevant legal knowledge, and the suggestions we made during our last visit are being implemented. In the early winter, people's supervisor Ai Zhongjiang and Zhang Zexian, procurator of the Shayibak District Procuratorate of Urumqi City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, "looked back" at the rectification of the community where a high-altitude throwing case occurred.
From participating in the briefing on the case in May this year, to visiting the community where the case occurred, and now to paying a return visit, Ai Zhongjiang frankly said that this is the first time in his more than five years of experience as a people's supervisor that he has participated in multiple links and supervised a case in an all-round and in-depth manner. "My sense of involvement in my job is getting stronger and stronger every year. He said.
The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that whole-process people's democracy is the essential attribute of socialist democratic politics and is the most extensive, authentic and effective democracy. As an important institutional design for procuratorial organs to implement "whole-process people's democracy", the people's supervisor system has endured wind and rain for 20 years and has shown vigorous vitality in the midst of continuous change.
Time knows the taste, and the years are agarwood. In the past 20 years, what is the institutional value of the people's supervisor system? How to implement the "rigidity" of supervision? A few days ago, this reporter interviewed some people's supervisors, experts and scholars, and case-handling procurators to explore the development and practice of this system over the past 20 years.
People's supervisor Ai Zhongjiang (right) and the prosecutor of the Shayibak District Procuratorate of Urumqi City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, "look back" at the community involved in the case.
Change in response
Who oversees the Overseers?
As the state's legal supervision organs, procuratorial organs inevitably face the question of "who will supervise the supervisors".
In 2002, the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) made a strategic plan to promote the reform of the judicial system, calling for strengthening supervision of judicial work. In 2003, the Supreme People's Procuratorate decided to implement the people's supervisor system for cases directly filed and investigated by the procuratorial organs, opening up a new way to strengthen the people's external supervision of the procuratorial organs.
In 2010, after a one-year pilot project and a six-year expansion of the pilot program, the people's supervisor system was fully rolled out in procuratorial organs across the country.
After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, as socialism with Chinese characteristics entered a new era, the people had new demands for democracy, rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and the environment, and the reform of the people's supervisor system was also poised to go.
In 2015, the general secretary presided over the 10th meeting of the leading group for comprehensively deepening reform, and the meeting deliberated and adopted the "Plan for Deepening the Reform of the People's Supervisor System". The meeting stressed that the implementation of the people's supervisor system, the introduction of external supervisory forces, and the improvement of the mechanism for protecting the rights of criminal suspects and defendants are major reforms and improvements to the mechanism for restricting judicial power.
In 2016, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued the "Measures for the Administration of the Selection and Appointment of People's Supervisors", which stipulates that the selection and management of people's supervisors are the responsibility of the judicial-administrative organs, realizing the separation of the management and use of people's supervisors.
The relationship between people's supervisors and procuratorial organs is essentially one of supervision and supervision. The 'separation of utility and utility' has further straightened out and clarified this relationship, established the neutral status of the people's supervisors themselves, and strengthened the externality and impartiality of the people's supervisors' supervision activities. Wu Hongyao, dean of the National Legal Aid Research Institute of China University of Political Science and Law, told reporters.
In 2018, with the reform of the national supervision system, the procuratorial organs' investigation functions for job-related crimes have undergone major adjustments, and the prerequisites for the establishment of the people's supervisor system have undergone major changes. The question of where the people's supervisor system should go has aroused extensive discussion for a while.
At that time, there were three main voices: the first was that if the investigation function of job-related crimes was transferred to the Supervision Commission, then the people's supervisor system should also be merged into the Supervision Commission's system; The second is that the people's supervisor system should not only be incorporated into the system of the Supervision Commission, but should also be compatible with the reform of the supervision system and expand the scope of supervision cases; The third view is that the system of people's supervisors should remain in the procuratorate, but the scope of supervision of cases needs to be readjusted. Shen **, director of the Supreme People's Procuratorate Case Management Office, recalled to reporters.
In the face of different voices from the outside world, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, after several rounds of investigation, finally made it clear from the perspective of the existence and abolition of the system that the procuratorial organs are still facing the problem of "who will supervise the supervisors", so the system of people's supervisors should not only be retained, but also continue to be strengthened.
In October 2018, the Sixth Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress adopted the revised Organic Law of the People's Procuratorate, which stipulates that "people's supervisors shall supervise the case-handling activities of the people's procuratorates in accordance with regulations. As a result, the people's supervisor system has become a system established by national law and has entered the track of development under the rule of law.
In 2019, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued the "Provisions on the Supervision of People's Procuratorates' Case-Handling Activities", which changed the scope of people's supervisors' supervision from the original supervision of self-investigation cases to the comprehensive supervision of the "four major procuratorates", and proposed "ten ways" for people's supervisors to participate in supervision. The system and mechanism of people's supervisors have been further improved and improved, and the work of people's supervisors has entered a stage of standardized and normalized development.
Over the past 20 years, the people's supervisor system has developed in depth around 'supervision' in every reform. In particular, after the reform of the state supervision system, the procuratorial organs have broadened the breadth and depth of supervision by the people's supervisors through the design of the system, demonstrating the self-confidence and openness of the procuratorial organs in taking the initiative to accept external supervision. Su Yafei, a people's supervisor and professor at Wuchang Institute of Technology, said.
Release energy in practice
Promote the improvement of procuratorial quality and efficiency
The data shows that at present, there are 2 people's supervisors in the countryMore than 50,000 people. From January 2019 to June 2023, procuratorial organs across the country invited more than 440,000 people's supervisors to supervise more than 280,000 procuratorial case-handling activities. The effectiveness of the people's supervisor system is being unleashed in vigorous practice.
Taking the high-altitude throwing case mentioned at the beginning of this article as an example, in 2022, in order to vent his personal emotions, the suspect Yang threw the cable box that was not fixed to the wall in the unit building from the window of the corridor on the sixth floor, and smashed Jia, who was walking downstairs, into a slight injury.
After the incident, Yang showed symptoms of suspected mental illness, and the throwing object in her hand was an unfixed object in the corridor, which reflects that there may be certain safety hazards in the community where the crime occurred. Zhang Zexian said that it was for these reasons that they invited Ai Zhongjiang, a people's supervisor with the qualification of a psychological counselor, to participate in the case.
Together with the procurator, I learned about the evaluation of Yang by the people around me in the community where the crime occurred, put forward reference opinions on Yang's psychological state, and at the same time suggested that she be evaluated for criminal responsibility. In addition, we found that there were many items in the corridors of the community that should have been fixed on the wall but were scattered at random, and the monitoring was not fully covered, and most residents did not understand the legal consequences that high-altitude objects may bear. For this reason, I suggest that the procuratorial organs use cases to promote justice. Ai Zhongjiang told reporters.
Later, after being appraised by a professional institution, Yang had full capacity for criminal responsibility. He was prosecuted by the Shayibak District Prosecutor's Office, and the court handed down a guilty verdict. Considering that the community involved in the case was a large community, the procuratorate formulated and issued a procuratorial recommendation to the property management company of the community according to the suggestions of the people's supervisor, and received positive feedback on rectification.
Inviting people's supervisors to participate in procuratorial case handling can not only give us professional advice with the help of their professional knowledge, but also promote the realization of social governance by procuratorial case handling with the help of their social perspective. Zhang Zexian said frankly that the participation of people's supervisors in handling cases is a pressure on her, but this pressure will force her to pay more attention to the standardization of case handling and the combination of law, reason, and emotion, and implement high quality and efficiency into the details of case handling.
In 2021, the Seventh Procuratorate Department of the Zhuji Municipal Procuratorate of Zhejiang Province organized a case quality evaluation of criminal cases involving the recovery of stolen goods and damages handled by this court. People's supervisor Xu Limu was invited to participate in the evaluation of the effectiveness of case handling and the recovery of stolen goods and losses.
In one of the telecommunications network fraud cases, the four defendants returned the full amount of 80,000 yuan in stolen money at different stages of the case handling by the public security, the procuratorate, and the court, but because there were only nine victims in the case, and the rest of the victims had been difficult to find, the work of returning the stolen money to the victims in the case had not been carried out. "From the perspective of the people, the return of stolen goods and losses is more related to their sense of gain in this case, and in the case that it is difficult to find all the victims, I suggest that the amount of the defrauded money of the victims in the case can be refunded first. Xu Limu recalled to reporters the situation of participating in the evaluation at that time.
Subsequently, the court analyzed and judged the case, adopted Xu Limu's suggestion, and divided 4The 60,000 yuan restitution money will be returned to the victim in the case, and the rest will be temporarily returned to the state treasury until other victims are found.
Professional case quality evaluators often pay more attention to the application of law and case-handling procedures, and the introduction of people's supervisors can better connect the needs of the people with procuratorial work. Taking this case quality evaluation as an opportunity, our court issued the "Coordination Working Mechanism for Restitution and Loss Recovery in the Field of Economic Crimes", and the recovery rate of cases has been greatly improved. The participation of the people's supervisors is not only supervision, but also support. Jiao Shanshan, deputy director of the Seventh Procuratorate Department of the court, told reporters.
Fairness and justice are the soul and life of judicial case-handling. When we participate in procuratorial and case-handling as people's supervisors, we must first give play to the role of external supervision and supervise the standardized exercise of procuratorial power. Secondly, it is necessary to put forward corresponding suggestions from a diverse social background and professional background, and promote the procuratorial organs to improve the quality and efficiency of case handling, so as to enhance the people's sense of access to justice. Yu Mingfeng, the people's supervisor and a professor at the Law School of Hunan Normal University, said.
Grasp the details to show "rigidity".
Make adequate preparations for the implementation of specifications
** The general secretary profoundly pointed out that democracy is not an ornament, not for decoration, but for solving the problems that the people need to solve. In the 20 years since the people's supervisor system has continued to develop, efforts have always been made to improve the "rigidity" of supervision and avoid reducing people's democracy to "going through the motions."
In March this year, the Shanghai Songjiang District Procuratorate invited people's supervisors to walk into the trial site of a case involving intellectual property rights crimes involving medical beauty devices to supervise the prosecutor's appearance in court for public prosecution.
People's supervisors were invited to participate in the "Seminar on People's Supervisors' In-depth Participation in the Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property" held by the Shanghai Songjiang District Procuratorate.
Yu Weiping, director of the Sixth Procuratorate Department of the Songjiang District Procuratorate, told reporters that in order to ensure the effectiveness of the supervision of the people's supervisors, they asked the local judicial bureau to invite a number of people's supervisors with intellectual property-related work backgrounds to participate in the supervision, and at the same time organized a pre-conference communication meeting, and the procurator who undertook the case introduced the case and the main focus of the prosecution and defense, and prepared the "Opinions and Suggestions Form for the Supervision of Procuratorial Case-Handling Activities by the People's Supervisors", which facilitates the people's supervisors to accurately supervise from the aspects of court appearance specifications, document quality, court appearance quality, and court appearance effect.
Xu Guozhong, who has been a people's supervisor for 7 years, once worked in a district intellectual property office in Shanghai. He told reporters that the pre-trial communication meeting gave him a lot of confidence to perform his duties, "We, as people's supervisors, have repeatedly considered and need to conduct investigations." The procuratorate helped us to make sufficient preparations, so that we were well aware of the application of the law in the case and the norms of the procurator's appearance in court, and laid the foundation for us to make accurate and good suggestions. ”
After the trial, Xu Guozhong fully recognized the prosecutor's performance in the trial, and suggested that the procuratorate should strengthen the rectification of the industry through this case to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. In this regard, Li Gezhen, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said that they have visited beauty institutions in the jurisdiction many times with the Market Supervision Bureau and other relevant departments, and issued legal risk reminder letters on compliance operation to relevant enterprises, and subsequently held a seminar on the theme of "People's Supervisors' Deep Participation in the Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights" to form a long-term cooperation mechanism with people's supervisors.
Improving the "rigidity" of supervision depends on playing a well-prepared "first move" and, more importantly, on treating each suggestion carefully. People's Supervisor Wang Zhaohui is a lawyer who was invited by the Qinzhou District Procuratorate in Tianshui City, Gansu Province, to participate in a public hearing of a proposed non-prosecution case in 2021.
In the case, the criminal suspect Li lied that he had a special relationship and could help with the transfer procedures, and deceived Zhang 160,000 yuan. After arriving at the case, Li took the initiative to return the stolen money in full and voluntarily pleaded guilty and accepted punishment, and the Qinzhou District Procuratorate planned to make a decision not to prosecute him.
At the public hearing, I asked Mr. Li questions. He still justifies his actions and does not recognize the harm of his actions. In addition, considering the adverse social impact caused by the handling of enrollment through acquaintances, I suggest that the procuratorate consider the particularity of the case and prosecute Li. Wang Zhaohui told reporters.
This suggestion is different from our original proposed proposal. Wei Xiucheng, the prosecutor in charge of the case and deputy procurator general of the Qinzhou District Procuratorate, told reporters that immediately after the hearing, they convened a joint meeting of prosecutors to discuss, believing that the people's supervisors had fully considered the social reality factors behind the case and should be adopted. In May 2021, the court prosecuted Li and recommended that he be sentenced to 10 months in prison with a suspended sentence, which was upheld by the court.
We are not here to echo and nod our heads in supervision, but to tell the truth from the perspective of the masses of the people. The procuratorial organs seriously discussed and sincerely accepted my suggestions, and I was more confident in performing my duties. Wang Zhaohui said with emotion.
It is reported that from January 2019 to June 2023, the people's supervisors put forward a total of 17 supervision opinions and recommendationsMore than 50,000 articles, a total of 15 were adopted by the procuratorateMore than 20,000 articles, more than 700 articles were partially adopted, and more than 20,000 explanations were made to the people's supervisors without adopting supervision opinions. People's supervisors' satisfaction with supervision work has generally increased.
Over the past 20 years, the people's supervisor system has blossomed in abundant practice. In the future, how will the system achieve in-depth development?Shen ** told reporters that the procuratorial organs will guide the vast number of procuratorial personnel to establish the concept of consciously accepting supervision, and invite people's supervisors to carry out multi-link supervision by selecting more difficult and complicated cases, which have a great social impact and have a high degree of public concern. In addition, we will continue to refine the suggestions and feedback mechanisms of the people's supervisors to ensure that the people's supervisors system continues to release system dividends.
As the department for the selection and appointment of people's supervisors, we will work with the procuratorial organs to carry out various forms of training to continuously improve the ability of people's supervisors to perform their duties. At the same time, we will continue to optimize the supervision process, encourage people's supervisors to take the initiative to supervise, and better give full play to the advantages of the people's supervisor system. The relevant person in charge of the People's Participation and Promotion of the Rule of Law Bureau of the Ministry of Justice said.
Wu Hongyao suggested that relevant departments can actively and steadily promote the legislation of the people's supervisor system, and determine the responsibilities of people's supervisors, the method of selection, the conditions for their appointment, the scope of supervision, rights and obligations, and the rewards and punishments for evaluation in the form of national legislation, so as to provide a legal basis for the sustainable development of the system.
*: Procuratorate** Voice Weekly Reporter: Chang Luqian).