Show fairness and justice between the lines
The first national procuratorial organs excellent criminal prosecution documents selection activities.
What can we see through a criminal prosecution document?
See justice. Criminal prosecution documents are the concentrated embodiment of the quality and efficiency of the procuratorial organs' handling of criminal cases, which is related to the practice of the rule of law and the people's feelings of fairness and justice.
See the rule of law. Criminal prosecution documents assume the important function of explaining the law and reasoning, and while making the people feel fairness and justice, they also enhance people's awareness of the rule of law.
See Professional. Criminal prosecution documents not only objectively record the process of procuratorial personnel performing their duties and handling cases, but also directly reflect their level of judicial ability.
Recently, the first national procuratorial organs outstanding criminal prosecution documents selection activity held by the Supreme People's Procuratorate came to an end, and 100 criminal prosecution documents stood out and were awarded the first national procuratorial organs excellent criminal prosecution documents. The reporter conducted an in-depth interview to understand the before and after of the selection event.
From December 8th to 9th, the first National Procuratorate Outstanding Criminal Prosecution Document Selection Conference was held in Beijing.
Build the platform
Promote the improvement of the quality and efficiency of criminal prosecution and case handling
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that efforts should be made to make the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case. The "Opinions of the Communist Party of China on Strengthening the Legal Supervision of Procuratorial Organs in the New Era" put forward the requirement of "strengthening the reasoning of legal documents and the interpretation of the law with cases". The party group of the Supreme People's Procuratorate emphasized that it is necessary not only to achieve fairness and justice through the performance of duties and handling cases, but also to make fairness and justice better and faster, and to let the people truly and effectively "feel" fairness and justice.
How to achieve fairness and justice, and how to make fairness and justice felt, felt, and felt?High-quality criminal prosecution documents are the best answers. When talking about the original intention of holding the document selection activity, Zhang Xiaojin, head of the leading department of the selection activity and director of the Fourth Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said, "Criminal prosecution documents are the main carrier for procuratorial organs to perform criminal prosecution functions, an organic part of handling every criminal case with high quality and efficiency, and a direct way for the people to feel fairness and justice." It can be said that continuously improving the quality of criminal prosecution documents is the only way to achieve higher quality and efficiency in criminal prosecution and case handling. ”
In recent years, procuratorial organs across the country have continuously improved their judicial level and the quality and efficiency of their case-handling, and the quality of criminal prosecution documents has been markedly improved. "A lot of high-quality, high-level criminal prosecution documents have been produced and issued in the course of handling cases. These excellent documents tell the story of the procuratorate, convey the spirit of the procuratorate, highlight the value of the rule of law, lead the social fashion, and carry the unremitting value pursuit of the procuratorial organ's 'high-quality and efficient case handling'. Zhang Xiaojin said, "But these excellent documents are silently precipitated in the files and archives, and their value has not been well played." This prompted us to build a platform to summarize and unearth excellent documents. This is also the responsibility of the criminal prosecution department of the Supreme People's Procuratorate. ”
This is also the expectation of the grassroots frontline. Luo Qingdong, deputy director of the First Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, told reporters that in the course of carrying out "Daxing investigation and research" on this year's theme education, many comrades who handled cases suggested that they hoped that the Supreme People's Procuratorate would adopt appropriate methods to summarize a number of good and authoritative criminal prosecution documents for reference in handling cases in various localities.
The top-level design coincides with the needs of the grassroots. Build a good platform, give full play to the exemplary and leading role of excellent documents, promote the high-quality development of criminal prosecution work, carry forward the core socialist values, establish procuratorial credibility, and better respond to the people's higher expectations for fairness and justice. Focusing on this original intention, in August 2023, the first national procuratorial organ excellent criminal prosecution document selection activity was officially launched. This is also the first time that the Supreme People's Procuratorate has held a selection of criminal prosecution documents since the reform of internal institutions.
The scope of the participating documents includes the procuratorial documents officially formulated and issued by the national procuratorial organs in the past five years and the relevant cases have been effectively adjudicated or finally disposed of, mainly including indictments, non-prosecution decisions, public prosecution opinions, statements of reasons for not approving arrest, returned supplementary investigation outlines, criminal protests, procuratorial suggestions, and other 10 categories of 21 common documents with strong rationality.
Soon, under the organization of the criminal prosecution departments of the provincial procuratorates, the 1,588 candidate documents recommended by the procuratorial organs in various places were collected in the Supreme People's Procuratorate. From September to November 2023, after two rounds of joint selection by the first to fourth procuratorial offices, 220 procuratorial documents finally stood out and entered the final review.
From December 8 to 9, 2023, the final round of judging will be held as scheduled. In order to highlight the fairness and professionalism of the review, the Supreme People's Procuratorate invited 16 people, including deputies to the National People's Congress in the legal field, legal experts and scholars, experts from the Legal Documents Research Association of the China Law Society, relevant persons in charge of the mainstream, and national procuratorial experts, to serve as judges. In the evaluation process, the judges scored one by one from multiple perspectives through collective reporting, centralized review of the participating documents and case materials, and finally selected 100 outstanding criminal prosecution documents of the first national procuratorial organs, and selected 100 nominations for excellent documents and 10 excellent organization awards.
From December 8th to 9th, the first National Procuratorate Outstanding Criminal Prosecution Document Selection Conference was held in Beijing. The picture shows the experts and scholars attending the meeting discussing the candidate excellent criminal prosecution documents.
Complement each other
A good document is inseparable from a high-quality case
What kind of document can be called an excellent criminal prosecution document?
When interviewing the judges of this selection activity, they tacitly gave a unanimous answer: an excellent criminal prosecution document must be objective, fair and accurate in the determination of facts, accurate and strict in the application of law in accordance with the law, and consistent with law and reason.
1. The language expression is standardized and clear.
In this selection, we have determined four evaluation dimensions: to clarify the facts, and to determine the facts objectively, fairly, and accurately;It is necessary to explain the legal principles, and be accurate, meticulous, rigorous, and convincing in accordance with the lawIt is necessary to be reasonable, reflect the unity of law and reason, conform to the mainstream values of society, be reasonable, and easy to accept and agreeIt is necessary to pay attention to literature and science, language standardization, accurate expression, clear logic, and moderate simplicity and complexity. Hu Chunjian, deputy director of the Fourth Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, told reporters.
Initiating a public prosecution is a symbolic function of criminal prosecution, and as the main vehicle for initiating public prosecution, the selection process of indictments is particularly competitive.
An indictment is not easy to write, and it requires a high degree of language generalization and narrative skills. In the end, the award-winning indictments used very concise language to explain the complex facts of the case, which was not easy. Han Xiaofeng, a member of the review committee and deputy director of the Third Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said after the review.
Different from the indictment, the most important thing that a public prosecution opinion needs is not a high degree of language generalization, but a blend of law and reason. An excellent public prosecution opinion should not only be objective and fair in content, but also clear in legal principles, and correctly lead social values.
Among the public prosecution opinions that I participated in, there were several public prosecution opinions that impressed me. These documents are well-argued and focused, not only effectively refuting the defendant's defense, but also effectively responding to the qualitative differences that the public is concerned about. Wu Chunmei, a member of the party group and deputy procurator general of the Third Branch of the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate, told reporters that these documents are thorough and reasonable, and convey the correct value orientation to the society.
The quality of the entries was generally very high. Some of the cases written in the documents were big cases that caused a sensation throughout the country, and there were also some cases written in the documents that were small cases close to the masses. Whether it is a large case or a small case, their documents are standardized and rigorous, and the logic is clear, reflecting the people-centered judicial value orientation of the procuratorial organs. Cheng Lei, deputy dean and professor of the Law School of Chinese People's University, told reporters.
In line with Cheng Lei's views, Chen Can, a deputy to the National People's Congress and director of Gansu Ruicheng Law Firm, also believes that the overall quality of the participating documents is very high. "Generally speaking, the documents are standardized, logically rigorous, and appropriately detailed, from which we can see the basic value pursuit of the procuratorate to 'handle every case with high quality and efficiency'. Chen Can is not only a judge of this review meeting, but also a special supervisor appointed by the Supreme People's Procuratorate. He said that there must be an excellent case behind excellent legal documents, and the selection of criminal prosecution documents also reflects the efforts and results of the procuratorial organs to make the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case.
Throughout this selection activity, it is not difficult to find that excellent criminal prosecution documents and excellent cases complement each other: only when cases are handled well can excellent documents be produced, and excellent documents can further make the people "feel" fairness and justice in judicial cases.
Lead by example
Jointly promote the improvement of the quality and efficiency of procuratorial case handling
From December 8th to 9th, the first National Procuratorate Outstanding Criminal Prosecution Document Selection Conference was held in Beijing. The picture shows the experts and scholars attending the meeting discussing the candidate excellent criminal prosecution documents.
The selection of outstanding criminal prosecution documents not only has an exemplary and leading role in improving the level of procuratorial document writing, but also can promote the improvement of the quality and efficiency of procuratorial case handling through the quality of procuratorial documents.
In my opinion, procuratorial documents are the best image endorsement of procuratorial organs, and they are also the best business cards to show the personal ability and quality of procurators. During the selection process, many documents gave me a bright feeling, and if these documents can be compiled into a book for more procurators to Xi, I believe that it will definitely lead to the improvement of the quality and efficiency of procuratorial case handling. As a judge, a national procuratorial business expert, Wang Yong, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Procurator General of the Suzhou Industrial Park Procuratorate in Jiangsu Province, said that he hoped that the Supreme People's Procuratorate could continue to carry out the selection of criminal prosecution documents, drive excellence with excellence, and continuously improve the level of document writing of procuratorial organs, so as to improve the overall quality and efficiency of criminal prosecution.
According to Zhao Chaoqin, vice president of the Legal Document Research Association of the China Law Society and professor of Henan University of Economics and Law, legal documents are a direct carrier for the people to feel fairness and justice, and it is particularly important to "say" justice through legal documents. "Let the people feel, feel, and feel fairness and justice, and ask prosecutors to 'say' good justice. As a member of the review committee, Zhao Chaoqin believes that "saying" good justice requires that on the basis of handling the case well, the interpretation of the law and reasoning is more adequate and accurate, and hopes that the procuratorial organs can promote learning through evaluation and better respond to the people's higher expectations for fairness and justice.
Choose the good ones and follow them. It is hoped that the procuratorial organs will take this selection activity as an opportunity to further improve their ability and level of explaining the law and reasoning, so that the people can more truly feel that fairness and justice are around them. Jiang Fan, a representative of the National People's Congress and founding partner of Hunan Renren Law Firm, told reporters that as a judge of the review committee, this selection activity made him feel a lot. For him, it was not only a selection meeting, but also a legal seminar, and he also gained a deeper understanding of many legal issues.
The Supreme People's Procuratorate will take this selection activity as an opportunity to give full play to the demonstration and leading role of excellent documents, identify the combination of high-quality procuratorial documents and high-quality and efficient case handling, and further promote the quality and efficiency of criminal case handling. Zhang Xiaojin told reporters that the Supreme People's Procuratorate plans to regularly organize excellent document selection activities to further enhance the awareness and concept of prosecutors attaching importance to document production, encourage case-handling personnel to seek perfection in document production, and provide greater driving force for improving the quality and efficiency of criminal prosecution and case handling.
*: Procuratorate**, Procuratorate News Edition Text Reporter: Sun Fengjuan Photojournalist: Yan Zhao **Face the Studio, Zhang Genglei, Ma Haohao, Lu Jichen, Ma Zhen).