Special report on "Procuratorial Integrated Performance, Comprehensive Performance, Active Performance, and Service to Safeguard Chinese-style Modernization".
The National Conference of Procurators General held on January 14 pointed out: "In the direction of building a fair, efficient and authoritative socialist procuratorial system with Chinese characteristics, we should focus on the modernization of procuratorial work concepts, systems, mechanisms, and capabilities, deepen procuratorial reform, and accelerate the modernization of procuratorial work." "Since 2023, procuratorial organs across the country have actively promoted the modernization of procuratorial work, and have carried out some work explorations and case-handling practices in accordance with local conditions, closely focusing on the requirements of "performing duties in accordance with the law, performing duties in an integrated manner, performing duties in an integrated manner, and performing duties actively" put forward by the party group of the Supreme People's Procuratorate. "Procuratorate**" has launched a special report on "Ensuring Chinese-style Modernization with Integrated Procuratorial Performance, Comprehensive Performance, Active Performance, and Service", and has successively demonstrated some local explorations and practices.
Combat effectiveness and high quality and efficiency
Huai'an Huaiyin: Practical Exploration on Comprehensive Performance of Duties and Integrated Development.
Towards the end of the year, the director of the Political Department of the Huaiyin District Procuratorate of Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, left a message under an online article, which attracted attention from many parties - "Huaiyin Procuratorial Attempt: Break down departmental barriers and boundaries, and gradually promote the procurator general to directly lead a number of procurator case-handling teams, and the 'four major procuratorates' of criminal, civil, bank, and public welfare are 'under one hand' in the same case-handling group, and cultivate compound procuratorial talents that meet the needs of the grassroots level." ”
How do grassroots procurators carry out comprehensive performance of their duties, and how do grassroots procuratorates integrate and develop? Recently, the reporter of "Procuratorate**" went deep into the Huaiyin District Procuratorate twice to interview some of the work explorations of the procuratorate.
A cross-departmental comprehensive performance exploration
On Monday, December 18, 2023, at 9 a.m., the directors of the Fourth and Fifth Procuratorial Departments of the Huaiyin District Procuratorate, prosecutors, assistant prosecutors and internal staff filled a large conference room, which was the scene of the weekly interdepartmental meeting on integration work chaired by Zhang Haiqin, a full-time member of the procuratorial committee of the procuratorate. After studying together the typical case of "Six Lengths of Questions" procuratorial public interest litigation just released by the Jiangsu Provincial Procuratorate last week and the implementation plan for deepening the comprehensive management of juvenile delinquency issued by the Political and Legal Committee of the Huai'an Municipal Party Committee and other departments, the discussion began
I am working on a case where a beauty salon sells toxic and harmful chocolates, and I have filed a civil public interest lawsuit attached to the criminal case. It is understood that it is more common for the beauty and medical beauty industries to sell this kind of 'three no' products on the market, how to perform their duties in order to further promote the administrative organs to carry out industry governance? ”
The typical cases just now have content about the mentally ill and the elderly, and we have also handled some such criminal cases, so we can try to dig up clues for public interest litigation in this regard. ”
To carry out comprehensive performance of duties, we should think from the three levels of individuals, case-handling teams, and the Huaiyin District Procuratorate, and look at whether there are any other problems from the perspective of the 'four major procuratorates' when handling each case. ”
When the reporter observed this regular meeting, he found that the concept of comprehensive performance of duties has been quite common among young prosecutors and assistant procurators of the Huaiyin District Procuratorate, and the practice of handling cases has also been carried out, but there are also many problems that need to be solved urgently in the specific performance of duties.
All this stems from an "experiment" of comprehensive performance reform launched by the hospital in 2021. The Huaiyin District Procuratorate is a typical grass-roots procuratorate in northern Jiangsu, with 60 political and legal cadres and policemen, including 17 procurators, and 6 operational departments including the first to sixth procuratorial departments and 2 comprehensive administrative departments such as the political department and the office. Over the past three years, the court has accepted an average of 900 criminal cases for arrest and prosecution of about 1,400 people per year. Because Huaiyin District is dominated by an agricultural economy, more than 80 percent of the cases handled by the procuratorate are ordinary criminal cases such as drunk driving, fights, and brawls, and there are few major, difficult, and complicated cases, and the number of cases handled by various departments and procurators is uneven.
In order to balance the caseload of procurators in different departments, the Huaiyin District Procuratorate explored the implementation of a comprehensive and integrated case-handling model: breaking down departmental barriers, implementing "two-by-two integration" of departments with similar functions and operations, and gradually realizing the overall integration of the whole court, and finally building a comprehensive performance and case-handling model of "chief procurator + several procurator case-handling teams".
Grassroots prosecutors
Integrate several samples of performance
To explore the reform of comprehensive performance of duties, it is still necessary to return to "handling cases".
In 2023, there will be a case of negligence causing death by a "three-no ship" in Huaiyin District, where the suspect Meng drove an iron boat without any legal procedures without a license and sailed in non-navigable waters, and then drowned the passenger due to the water entering the iron boat.
When we were handling the case, we found that there have been several similar cases in Huaiyin, where illegal fishing by 'three-no' vessels, such as iron boats and high-horsepower fast boats, is prominent, and safety accidents occur frequently. However, the District Transportation Bureau did not perform its duties of ship safety management, and the District Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau did not perform its duties of inspection and supervision and management of fishing vessels. When we visited the victim's family, we also found that he met the conditions for judicial assistance, so we handled judicial assistance for him. Du Jiang, procurator of the First Procuratorate Department of the Huaiyin District Procuratorate, told reporters that in the past, such cases had to be handled by at least two departments and three procurators in stages.
During the interview with the Huaiyin District Procuratorate, the reporter heard many similar stories of handling cases.
In an illegal business operation case, Xia Chuanhui, the prosecutor handling the case, found that there was a civil legal dispute between the safety production enterprises involved in the case, so he put forward a number of civil and administrative legal suggestions related to production safety for the compliance plans of the three enterprises, helping the enterprises to successfully complete the compliance rectification. Before the compliance assessment, the prosecutor handling the case also used the knowledge of environmental protection administrative regulations and the technical power of public interest litigation to conduct a technical inspection of the pollution problems of the two chemical companies, helping the enterprises to eliminate law-related risks in an all-round way.
Ren Huan, the prosecutor handling the case, believes that the case is not only a petition case, but also involves public interest litigation on production safety, so he carried out administrative public interest litigation and civil public interest litigation at the same time, on the one hand, urging the administrative organs to perform their duties in accordance with the law, on the other hand, urging the gas company to bear civil liability, exploring the compliance of civil public interest litigation enterprises, and urging relevant departments to compensate 397 households with more than 500 yuan.
At the beginning of 2022, there was a case of intentional injury and death caused by migrant workers asking for wages. In response to this case of acquittal, Guo Minglu, the prosecutor handling the case, successfully prosecuted the defendant by supplementing the investigation and guiding the investigation, and in the process of handling the case, issued a notice to correct the violation of the law in response to the improper behavior of the public security organ's designated residence, supported the victim's family to file a civil lawsuit on the issue of wages, and at the same time initiated judicial aid procedures for the son of the victim who became a "de facto orphan" in accordance with the law.
In the course of handling cases, while consolidating the evidence base of criminal cases, we should dig deep into the clues of the case, comprehensively consider factors such as the parties' ability to protect their rights and remedies, and the protection of the rights and interests of special groups, and fulfill our responsibilities such as supporting prosecution and judicial assistance. I think this is the norm for a prosecutor to really handle cases with high quality and efficiency with the mentality of 'seeking truth and being pragmatic and taking responsibility'. Guo Minglu said.
Confronting the difficulties and blockages of grassroots procuratorates
Why should we explore the use of the "four major procuratorates" to achieve comprehensive performance of duties within one prosecutor or one case-handling team? There are two stories that are widely circulated in the Huaiyin District Procuratorate.
One is the trial of a criminal attached civil public interest lawsuit that Liu Qingguo, the chief procurator of the procuratorate, observed. "After the criminal part of the trial ended, the judge did not move, the lawyer did not move, and the defendant did not move, only the prosecutor's bench was moved, and another prosecutor and his assistant were replaced to perform public interest litigation duties. I wondered, why do prosecutors need to be changed at different stages of the same case? Why can't a prosecutor do it all the way? Later, Liu Qingguo began to explore the comprehensive performance of duties in the Huaiyin District Procuratorate.
The other is that when Ren Huan, director of the Fifth Procuratorial Department of the court, was in the public prosecution post a few years ago, a distant relative called him ** and consulted him on how to claim work-related injury insurance. "I was blinded. I had heard of work-related injury insurance, but I didn't know anything about it, so I had to ask my colleagues in the civil banking department, and then give answers to my relatives. To be honest, I felt very ashamed at the time, but I couldn't answer the common work-related injury insurance questions in reality, as a prosecutor specializing in legal work. Of course, I don't feel that kind of predicament now. Ren Huan said.
Liu Qingguo, who has 38 years of experience in grassroots procuratorial work, introduced the original intention of carrying out this reform -- to face up to the difficulties and blockages in grassroots procuratorial work. Basic-level procuratorates are relatively weak in civil, administrative, public interest litigation and other procuratorial businesses, and there is a process of making up for weaknesses. Under the original case-handling model, it was extremely difficult to achieve a balanced and comprehensive performance of duties by the "four major procuratorates". Even if the system of transferring clues for case supervision is implemented, because the cadres and police officers belong to different higher-level lines, different departments, and different leaders in charge, there are often problems such as self-centeredness, or neglect to report, and there is no way to know if they are not transferred. The integrated performance of duties and comprehensive performance of duties can solve this problem to a large extent.
In the process of exploration, the Huaiyin District Procuratorate also faced problems such as the lack of correspondence between the internal institutions of the upper and lower levels, the solidification of the thinking of some cadres and policemen, and the reluctance to learn more.
Reform is often accompanied by controversy. Is the exploration of reform contrary to the direction of judicial specialization? How can the quality of case handling be ensured in the comprehensive performance of duties? Do grassroots procurators have sufficient capacity to undertake the comprehensive performance of the duties of the "four major procuratorates"? There are many issues that need to be addressed.
Specialization is not the same as simplification. "Monopoly and wholeness are not incompatible. A number of procurators interviewed believe that procurators' "one specialization and multiple abilities" is the basis for comprehensive performance of duties, and with the development of judicial refinement and specialization, comprehensive performance of duties precisely meets the needs of comprehensive and professional protection of specific interests. The integrated performance of duties can also make up for the lack of individual ability of procurators, and for major, difficult, and complex cases, they may be discussed and decided through joint meetings of procurators, procuratorial committees, or even reported to higher-level procuratorates.
Li Lin, deputy chief procurator of the Huaiyin District Procuratorate, once gave an example in his speech when the Jiangsu Provincial Procuratorate came to the procuratorate for investigation and investigation: The anti-money laundering work of the procuratorate has maintained the scale of handling two cases per year for three consecutive years, and it has advanced in the city's assessment, and these cases have been found in the procuratorial link and promoted the completion of cases. "The court stipulates that who finds clues, who supervises the filing of cases, and who handles money laundering cases is linked to the assessment, which is very beneficial to mobilizing the enthusiasm of cadres and police, improving their comprehensive performance ability, and promoting work. ”
At the same time, in order to strengthen the supervision of the operation of procuratorial power, the Huaiyin District Procuratorate is responsible for case management and procuratorial supervision by procurators with rich experience in handling cases, and is directly under the leadership of the chief procurator and responsible to the chief procurator.
Walking into the office building of the Huaiyin District Procuratorate, the "Procurator Assessment Form" composed of two exhibition boards is particularly conspicuous. Liu Qingguo repeatedly mentioned in the interview that the exploration time is still short and some achievements have been made, but the effect still needs to be tested for a longer time. "The Supreme People's Procuratorate Party Group has put forward the requirements of comprehensively performing its duties in accordance with the law, performing its duties in an integrated manner, and actively performing its duties, which we believe is consistent with our own exploration, and has also greatly boosted our confidence. ”
Journalists observe
Explore grassroots procuratorates
Implement a new path for handling cases in the comprehensive performance of duties
Being pragmatic and seeking efficiency and adapting measures to local conditions is the reporter's overall impression of the procuratorial team of the Huaiyin District Procuratorate in Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province. In their reform and exploration of the comprehensive performance of their duties, they have always adhered to being problem-oriented, starting from the difficulties and blocking points in their own work, and while the internal organs remain unchanged, they have improved judicial efficiency and improved the quality of case handling by adjusting the content of procurators' performance of duties.
The seminar for chief procurators emphasized: "On the new journey, to promote the comprehensive, coordinated and full development of the 'four major procuratorates', we must adhere to the integrated performance of duties in accordance with the law, comprehensive performance of duties, and active performance of duties, and truly dare to supervise, be good at supervision, and supervise and standardize supervision in accordance with the law." ”
One point of deployment, nine points of implementation. We must admit that the phenomenon of the imbalance in the number of cases handled by the "four major procuratorates" is even more prominent in the grass-roots procuratorial organs. "There are thousands of lines at the top, and a needle at the bottom", due to the limitations of manpower and material resources, grass-roots procuratorial organs cannot completely achieve the corresponding separate establishment of operational departments and institutions with higher-level procuratorates, which requires the procurators of grass-roots procuratorates to assume more responsibilities for comprehensive performance of their duties. However, in practice, because they belong to different operational departments, some procurators neglect to report and transfer leads on legal supervision in the areas of civil, administrative, public interest litigation, and judicial aid when they discover them in handling criminal cases, which affects the realization of the legal supervision function of the procuratorial organs.
In this case, exploring the comprehensive performance of the "four major procuratorial" functions by a team of procurators and handling the case to the end is conducive to bringing together the legal supervision function modules that were originally separated from different business lines into the same operating node, and the case undertaker who has comprehensively sorted out the facts, evidence, and legal relationships in the previous legal process can perform his duties more efficiently and intensively in the latter legal process. This conforms to the law governing the operation of grass-roots procuratorial work, and is conducive to the grass-roots procuratorates truly being bold and good at supervising and supervising according to law and standardizing supervision.
On December 21, 2023, Ying Yong, Procurator General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, pointed out that the foundation of procuratorial work is at the grassroots level, the strength is at the grassroots level, the focus is on the grassroots level, and the weak links are also at the grassroots level.
Performing duties in an integrated manner, comprehensively, and actively in accordance with the law is the method and path for the construction of grassroots procuratorates, which is conducive to the realization of the basic value pursuit of "handling every case with high quality and efficiency". Handling each case with high quality and efficiency means that the procurator handling the case should fully explore the specific circumstances of the case and the relevant legal relationships, and find clues for legal supervision, judicial assistance, and industry governance, so as to achieve the organic unity of case handling quality, efficiency, and effectiveness.
We must also be aware that the comprehensive performance of duties is not a "hodgepodge" or "big pot stew", and we cannot blindly pursue speed and efficiency, which affects the realization of fairness and justice; Nor can we be lazy and slack in government under the guise of "quality". The comprehensive performance of duties requires procurators to give full play to their subjective initiative and master more legal skills in other business lines under the premise of "one specialization"; The comprehensive performance of duties also requires the grassroots procuratorates to consider the work arrangements in an integrated manner, and to carry out realistic, scientific and rational adjustments, and layouts based on the number, type, and characteristics of the cases in the area where they are located, the professional characteristics of each business line, and the current situation of the development of legal supervision work, so as to conform to the basic laws governing the operation of the "four major procuratorates."
It is up to the people to judge whether they are effective in performing their duties. Grass-roots procuratorates are the "windows" through which the party maintains flesh-and-blood ties with the masses through judicial channels. As a matter of fact, many people are unable to distinguish between the different contents of the performance of duties by the "four major procuratorates" and the division of functions among the various procuratorial departments. For them, it is the most important thing to feel fairness and justice in every judicial case, which is also the significance of the procuratorial organs to perform their duties in a comprehensive manner.