According to surging news reports, on January 27, 2024, Jiangsu Yuantong Bellows issued a "reward announcement" to publicly solicit clues on the abuse of power, favoritism, and other illegal crimes of a public official during his tenure in public office.
As soon as the news came out, ** was in an uproar. There is a view that the open collection of leads on violations and crimes by public employees is conducive to promoting public employees to perform their duties in accordance with the law and standardize law enforcement; There are also views that the public solicitation of clues on violations and crimes by public employees damages the image of public employees and may also infringe on the privacy of public officials; There is also a view that this kind of public reward for soliciting clues on the violations and crimes of public officials is detrimental to the credibility of state organs. It is not conducive to the stability of the ranks of public officials, and so on.
It is also analyzed from the perspective of the legal relationship of civil contracts, that the Civil Code stipulates the type of reward contract, and it can be seen that the solicitation of clues by the reward is a civil contract legal relationship between the rewarder and the person who may provide qualified clues, and it has its legitimacy.
All of the above points have their own merits. In Mr. Wang's view, there is a sufficient constitutional basis for the company's act of offering rewards for soliciting clues on the violations and crimes of public officials. That is, there is a fundamental legal basis for such acts. For example, Article 41 of the Constitution stipulates that "citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any State organ or functionary; They have the right to lodge complaints, accusations or reports against any State organ or State functionary who has violated the law or dereliction of duty." Since there is a "right to complain, accuse or report", then there is a right to obtain evidence, and it is not against any legal provision to pay a reward out of one's own pocket to obtain evidence.
In addition, from the perspective of cracking down on violations and crimes, the first paragraph of Article 110 of the Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that "any unit or individual has the right and obligation to report or report to the public security organs, people's procuratorates or people's courts when they discover the facts of a crime or a criminal suspect".
Although the Supervision Law, which regulates and supervises the conduct of all public officials exercising public power, has no provisions similar to the above-mentioned provisions, Article 1 of the Supervision Law clearly states that it is enacted in accordance with the Constitution. Therefore, the law should also comply with the relevant provisions of the Constitution.
Based on the above analysis, Mr. Wang believes that the Jiangsu company's act of offering a reward to solicit clues about the suspected violations and crimes of public officials has a clear legal basis, and its legality should be determined.
As to why there is such a thing as enterprises paying out of their own pockets to solicit clues about the violations and crimes of public officials, people, especially those with the right to do so, should think about it. Since ancient times, there has been an unspoken rule in our society that "the people do not fight with the officials". Presumably, this company must not have too much money to spend and have nothing to do, right? Should the relevant parties check whether the problems mentioned in the "bounty announcement" are true?
Nowadays, the economy is not active, and all sectors of society are concerned about the business environment. Mr. Wang has learned from the relevant cases he has handled: the exercise of public power in accordance with the law is the most basic and critical element of the business environment, and there is no one.