Guideline to help prevent wrongful cases

The Communist Party of China Central Committee has issued a guideline to strengthen the legal supervision work of people's procuratorates in the justice system and prevent wrongful prosecutions and convictions.

The document sets out clear requirements for strengthening the legal supervision of procuratorial organs. The Supreme People's Procuratorate said procuratorates at all levels have faithfully performed their duty of legal supervision, but there are still shortcomings that need to be addressed.

The document required procuratorates to comprehensively improve the quality and effectiveness of legal supervision and safeguard judicial fairness, while enhancing the supervision of case filings, investigations and prosecutions.

It also asked the procuratorial organs to strengthen their capacity to promptly detect and correct illegal acts during investigations, such as extracting confessions through torture and illegally obtaining evidence, to prevent wrongful convictions.

Yang Weidong, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, said that the guideline put forward higher requirements for the construction of the rule of law, and improving the quality of legal supervision could lay a solid foundation for the rule of law and eliminate the possibility of wrongful cases.

Putting an end to wrongful convictions requires law enforcement and judicial departments to strictly follow the law and regulations at every step, he said.

"Impartial justice is the bottom-line requirement for the construction of the rule of law, and the reason why there are wrongful cases and convictions in practice is that the legitimate procedures and regulations have not been strictly followed by both the judicial and supervision departments," Yang said.

"Especially in criminal cases, it is particularly important to file a case, investigate, collect evidence, prosecute and adjudicate in strict accordance with procedures and regulations. Some people may be sentenced to death based on the procedures, while others may be sentenced to prison for decades, which is hard to compensate for with money."

The guideline also asked procuratorates to promptly discover and correct illegal situations, such as failing to file a case when it should be filed, or filing a case when it should not be filed, or letting a case hang for a long time without prosecution or withdrawal.

Using the means adopted in criminal cases to intervene in civil or economic disputes should be resolutely corrected and prevented. The application of compulsory measures and means of investigation should also be standardized to effectively protect human rights, it said.

Yang said that in the past, some law enforcement and judicial organs or personnel pursued a high rate of solved cases, which made them behave improperly in the process of investigation, evidence collection and prosecution. Although the situation has changed over the years, such an attitude may still exist, purposely or subconsciously, and it should be completely eradicated.

The legal supervision organs are supposed to stop the occurrence of illicit behaviors and must follow the requirements to promptly discover and correct illicit acts that appear amid their procedures－whether the problems are detected by the organs themselves or reported by others－which would prevent the problems leading to wrongful convictions, he said.

New technologies have improved the level and quality of case handling, and law enforcement and judicial departments should consider how to make good use of such technologies, Yang said.

The document also urged procuratorates to use a comprehensive range of means of supervision, including appeals, giving corrective opinions and sending procuratorial suggestions, to promptly correct problems such as obvious inadequacies in conviction and sentencing and serious violations of judicial procedures.

The guideline called for the enhancement of legal supervision of the review of death sentences and the protection of lawyers' practicing rights. It required the strengthening of internal oversight, and the strict enforcement of regulations on the recording and reporting of officials who intervene in judicial activities or handle specific cases.

The annual work report of the Supreme People's Court, released in March, said that courts at all levels upheld the principles of the legality of convictions and punishments last year, along with the presumption of innocence and evidentiary adjudication, and acquitted 656 defendants in public prosecution cases and 384 defendants in private prosecution cases.

The court also retried and revised 1,818 criminal cases, including the high-profile case of Zhang Yuhuan, who was jailed for nearly 27 years for intentional homicide and acquitted in August last year. He received about 4.96 million yuan ($764,000) in compensation from the State.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate's annual work report, also released in March, said procuratorates nationwide launched appeals in 8,903 cases against criminal convictions, upholding the presumption of innocence and suggesting several verdicts be changed to not guilty.

Meanwhile, procuratorial organs also launched an accountability procedure for major miscarriages of justice that have been corrected in recent years. The correction of faults should not stop at State compensation, and accountability must fall on those responsible, the SPP's report said.