Annual Report on Promoting the Rule of Law in China(2016)

III. Judicature, Prosecution, Public Security

And Judicial Administration

(1) Judicature

The Supreme People’s Court accepted 22,742 cases and concluded 20,151 cases in 2016, 42.3% and 42.6% respectively more than in the previous year. The local courts at all levels accepted 23.03 million cases, tried, executed and concluded 19.772 million cases with a subject amounting to 4,980 billion yuan, 18%, 18.3% and 23.1% respectively more than in the previous year.

——Trying criminal trials. The courts at all levels tried and closed 1.116 million criminal cases of first instance, and sentenced 1.22 million criminals in 2016. They severely punished the crime of endangering the state security. They tried and closed the cases of Zhou Shifeng and others for subverting the state power, and increased punishment to violence, terror, cult and other crimes. They severely punished corruption and bribery and tried and closed 45,000 cases of corruption and bribery, involving 63,000 persons. They provided judicial services for poverty alleviation, and firmly punished the crime of corruption and embezzlement of funds allocated for helping the poor by trying and closing 15,000 cases. They strengthened the work of cracking down on the Mafia-type organizations and evil forces by trying and closing 226,000 criminal cases of homicide, robbery, kidnapping and theft. They punished the drug-related crimes by trying and closing 118,000 cases. They tried and closed 23,000 cases of insider trading and financing frauds. They severely punished the crime of infringing on the rights and interests of women and children by trying and closing 5,335 criminal cases of kidnapping and sexually assaulting women and children and 213 criminal cases of bullying or humiliating people in schools. They severely punished telecommunication and cyber crimes by trying and closing 1,726 cases. The Supreme People’s Court tried Nie Shubin’s intentional homicide and rape case and changed his verdict to innocence.

——Trying civil and commercial cases. The courts at all levels tried and closed 6.738 million civil cases of first instance in 2016, 8.2% more than in the previous year. Among them, there were 1.752 million marriage and family cases, 475,000 labour dispute cases and 29,000 cases for the protection of the rights and interests of consumers. The courts at all levels tried and closed 4.026 million commercial cases of first instance, 20.3% more than in the previous year. Among them, there were 1.248 million dispute cases in relation to equity, securities, futures, bills and insurance, 3,373 bankruptcy cases, 255,000 real estate dispute cases and 318,000 cases involving the separation of the three rights of the rural land in the reform.

——Administrative trials and state compensation. The courts at all levels tried and closed 225,000 administrative cases of first instances, 13.2% more than in the previous year. The Supreme People’s Court strengthened the construction of the trans-regional courts in Beijing and Shanghai and promoted concentrated jurisdiction over administrative cases in alien places. It encouraged responsible persons of administrative organs to appear in court sessions in response. The courts at all levels tried and closed 5,812 state compensation cases.

——Execution work. The courts at all levels accepted 6.149 million execution cases and concluded 5.079 million execution cases in 2016, 31.6% and 33.1% respectively more than in the previous year, with the amount of the subject totaling 1,500 billion yuan, 54% more than in the previous year. The Supreme People’s Court joined with the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, the People’s Bank of China, the Securities Regulatory Commission in establishing the check and control network system to solve the problem of difficulty in execution. The courts promoted the online judicial auction and held more than 430,000 auctions with the amount of transactions coming to more than 270 billion yuan. It initiated the construction of “Honest China” and united with the State Reform and Development Commission and more than 40 other central departments in signing a cooperation memorandum of understanding on punishment to create an honesty and punishment situation in which “dishonesty once leads to restriction everywhere”. The courts published a total of 6.89 million pieces of information on dishonest persons subject to punishment and adopted disciplinary measures for 8.57 million men times. The courts sentenced 16,000 persons to judicial detention, and investigated the criminal responsibilities of 2,167 persons for refusing to execute judgements.

——Registration for letters and visits and supervision over trials. The courts at all levels tried and closed 179,702 cases for appeals and applications for retrials, and brought 33,890 retrial cases according to law in 2016. They strengthened supervision over trials, and changed verdicts for 11,055 cases from among the retried cases closed in 2016 for errors in original judgements or for other reasons, accounting for 0.09% of the effective judgements. The courts at all levels accelerated the construction of litigation service centres, and made full use of the litigation service networks, APP, and the 12368 hotline to provide omnidirectional and three-dimensional litigation service to the parties. The Supreme People’s Court explored to establish electronic courts and online tribunals and other intelligent service platforms, streamlined the filing procedures. It introduced online filing and circuit filing, and the on-line filing percentage of the courts throughout the country exceeded 95%. They strengthened the work of online appeals and video receptions.

(2) Prosecution

——Performing the functions of approving arrests and prosecution. The procuratorial organs throughout the country approved the arrest of 828,618 criminal suspects of all categories and prosecuted 1,402,463 persons. They firmly safeguarded state security and deepened the struggle against secession, infiltration, subversion and cult. They severely punished serious criminal offences and cracked down on the crimes of organizing and leading terrorist organizations and spread audio-video of violence and terror, prosecuted 65,076 persons for the serious crimes of intentional homicide, rape, and arson, prosecuted 1,106 persons for the crime of organizing Mafia-type groups, and prosecuted 399,708 persons for the crimes of robbery, seizure and theft. They severely punished television and cyber fraud crimes, and cooperated with the Ministry of Public Security in supervising the handling of 62 major cases, including the Xu Yuyu case and approved the arrest of 19,345 criminal suspects for telecommunication and cyber frauds. They earnestly safeguarded security in school camps and joined with the Ministry of Education in issuing the Guiding Opinions on Preventing Primary and Secondary Children from being bullied and attacked by violence, and prosecuted 4,604 persons for using serious violence in schools and prosecuted 678 persons for instigating and inducing school children to commit crimes. They punished the crimes committed in hospitals, and launched special actions with the Ministry of Public Security and the State Public Health and Family Planning Commission to prosecute 3,308 persons for injuring doctors and other hospital staff and stirring up troubles in hospitals, and exercised supervision on handling 30 major cases related to hospital. They severely punished the crime of endangering the safety of foods and drugs, and suggested the transfer of 1,591 suspected criminal cases from the food and drug administrations, and prosecuted 11,958 persons for endangering the safety of foods and drugs. They protected the legitimate rights and interests of minors, women, aged persons and disabled people, and prosecuted 16,078 persons for sexually assaulting and kidnapping minors, and prosecuted 2,663 for infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of persons in rural areas and 24,061 persons for infringing the personal rights and interests of women, and 34,709 persons for infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of the elderly, and prosecuted 4,750 persons for infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of the disabled. They deepened the comprehensive control and improvement of the social order on the part of the procuratorial work, and prosecuted 210,325 persons for pornography, gambling and drug-related crimes, 1,405 persons for the crimes of maltreatment, abandonment and bigamy and 5,134 persons for the crimes of family violence. They resolutely combated ill-intentional back pay and prosecuted 2,135 persons for refusing to pay labor remunerations.

——Guaranteeing the steady and healthy development of the economy. They positively served the implementation of the major state strategy and strengthened judicial cooperation with countries and regions along One Belt and One Road and gave prominence to the punishment and prevention of crimes that occurred in the fields of infrastructure facilities and the construction of economic and trade cooperative industrial zones. The procuratorial organs made efforts to prevent financial risks, prominently punished the economic crimes of raising funds from residents illegally and Internet financial crimes, and prosecuted 16, 406 persons for fund raising frauds. They strengthened the judicial protection of property rights and persisted in provide equal protection and formulated the Eighteen Opinions to guarantee and promote the development of the nonpublic economy and the Twenty-two Opinions to strengthen the judicial protection of property rights, and prosecuted 13,629 persons for infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of the nonpublic businesses and persons operating nonpublic economy. They filed cases for the investigation of 1,009 criminal cases of infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of nonpublic businesses. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate formulated the Fifteen Opinions to guarantee scientific and technological innovations and prosecuted 21,505 persons to punish the crimes of infringing on intellectual property rights. They punished the crime of endangering work safety and prosecuted 2,635 persons for major responsibility accidents and investigated the responsibility of 814 officials for the crime of malfeasance that caused the accidents.

——Investigating and preventing duty crimes. The procuratorial organs filed cases for the investigation of the duty crimes of 47,650 persons, including 2,882 former officials at the county level, and 446 officials at the departmental or bureau level. They investigated and handled 17,410 “fly grafters” in the fields of the livelihood of the people, including land requisition for demolition and resettlements, social security and funds for agriculture, the rural areas and peasants. They investigated and handled 10,472 persons for the crime of accepting bribes and 7,375 persons for giving bribes. They investigated and handled 11,916 persons for the crimes of malfeasance and tort through dereliction of duty and abuse of power. They investigated and handled the duty crimes related to cheating in the elections in Liaoning Province. They made intensive investigations of the crime of corruption behind judicial injustice and handled 8,703 administrative law enforcers and 2,183 judicial officials suspected of committing duty crimes. They cracked down on the duty crimes in the field of poverty alleviation and investigated 1,892 persons for duty crimes. They strengthened the work of preventing duty crimes at sources. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate cooperated with the China Postal Group Corporation to popularize the experience of Jiangsu Province “the Postal Road for Preventing Duty Crimes”. The procuratorial organs throughout the country put forward 11,172 procuratorial suggestions in the light of the outstanding problems found in handling cases. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate relied on the people to investigate and handle duty crimes, aroused and encouraged the initiative of individuals and units to make real-name reports, and joined with the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Finance in issuing Some Provisions on Protecting and Encouraging People to Report Duty Crimes.

——Strengthening supervision over judicial activities. They strengthened legal supervision over litigious activities and urged investigative organs to file 14,650 cases, arrested and prosecuted 43,960 persons additionally, and supervised the correction of 34,230 law violations in obtaining evidences, applying compulsory measures and extorting confessions by torture. They protested against 3,282 effective civil and administrative judgements and mediation papers with real mistakes and put forward 2,851 suggestions for retrials, and made 13,254 procuratorial suggestions against law violations in civil and administrative trial procedures and 20,505 procuratorial suggestions for civil executions. They upheld the principles of prescribed punishment for specified crimes and innocence in doubtful cases, and made efforts to improve the long-term mechanisms for reporting the discovery of framed-up and wrong cases, examination guidance, supervision over corrections and accountability for compensations. They made concentrated efforts to clean up real sentences that were not executed, found 11,379 such sentenced persons, supervised the correction for 6,381 of them and 5,062 persons were put into prison again. They verified all cases related to the property penalty sentenced by people’s courts since 2013, and supervised the execution of the sentences that were not yet executed or that were not yet finished, put forward 3,172 written correction opinions and 11,897 procuratorial suggestions. They continued to supervise the correction of the cases that had been held without decisions for a long time, and finished the correction of all cases involving 4,459 persons held without conclusion for three or more years found in 2013. They strengthened the examination of the necessity of detention and put forward suggestions for release or change of compulsory measures for 42,159 persons. They continued to supervise the correction of illegal commutation, parole and temporary service outside prison, and supervised the correction of improper requests for 23,831 persons and the correction of improper rulings or decisions for 3,703 persons. They urged the correction of escapes from control for 8,477 persons. They strengthened supervision over false civil lawsuits, put forward opinions on supervision for 2,017 “false lawsuits” in private lending and enterprise bankruptcy, and filed cases for the investigation of 146 cases of duty crimes involved in the false lawsuits.

(3) Judicial Interpretations and Guiding Cases

The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued three judicial interpretations in 2016. The Supreme People’s Court issued 26 judicial interpretations separately, including seven criminal judicial interpretations, eleven civil judicial interpretations, one administrative judicial interpretation and ten other judicial interpretations, and issued 21 guiding cases. The judicial interpretations and guiding cases played a positive role in the correct implementation of the laws.

——Giving guidance to handling major and complicated issues in the work of criminal justice. The Supreme People’s Court issued the Interpretation concerning Some Issues on the Application of the Law to Hearing Drug Criminal Cases in April to punish drug crimes according to law. It and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued the Interpretation concerning Some Issues on the Application of the Law to Handling Criminal Cases of Corruption and Bribery in April to punish the crime of corruption and bribery. The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued the Interpretation concerning Some Issues on the Application of the Law to Handling Criminal Cases of Illegal Mining and Destructive Mining in November to punish illegal mining and destructive mining. The Supreme People’s Court issued the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court concerning Some Issues on the Specific Application of the Law to Hearing Criminal Cases of Practicing Medicine Illegally in December to punish practicing medicine illegally and guarantee the health and life of citizens. It issued the Interpretation concerning Some Issues on the Concrete Application of the Law to Hearing Criminal Cases of Kidnapping and Selling Women and Children to punish the crime of kidnapping and selling women and children and guarantee the legitimate rights and interests of women and children. It and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued the Interpretation concerning Some Issues on the Application of the Law to Handling Criminal Cases of Environmental Pollution to punish the crime of environmental pollution.

——Giving guidance to handling the new circumstances and new issues properly in the fields of economic and social development and the livelihood of the people. The Supreme People’s Court issued the Interpretation concerning Some Issues on the Application of the Property Law of the People’s Republic of China (1) in February to guarantee the property rights and the security and efficiency of the market transactions. The Supreme People’s Court issued the Interpretation concerning Some Issues on the Application of the Law to Hearing Cases of Consumer Civil Public Interest Litigation in April. It contains provisions on the application of the law to hearing cases of consumer civil public interest litigation and the protection of legitimate rights and interests of consumers to the maxim. The Supreme People’s Court issued the Written Reply on the Issue of the Relevant Procedure for the Cases of Personal Safety Protection Order in July to provide protection to the victims of family violence. The Supreme People’s Court issued the Provisions concerning Some Issues on Hearing Cases of Disputes over Independent Letter of Guarantee in November to guide the courts at all levels to correctly hear cases of disputes over independent letter of guarantee and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the parties.

——Giving guidance to the new circumstances and new issues in the fields of administrative litigation and state compensation. The Supreme People’s Court issued the Interpretation concerning Some Issues on the Application of the Law to Hearing Cases of Judicial Compensations in Civil and Administrative Law Suits in September to uniform the discretionary standards for compensation cases of noncriminal judicature.

(4) Public Security

——Safeguarding social order and stability. The Ministry of Public Security carried out an intensive special action to combat violence and terror, and deepened the struggle against Mafia-type organizations, kidnapping, holding illegal arms, robbery, seizure and frauds, pornography, gambling, narcotics, inferior-quality foods and drugs and environmental pollution, infringements on the personal information of citizens, telecommunication and cyber crimes and financial and securities frauds, accelerated the improvement of the prevention and control system for social security to maintain social order and stability. The Ministry promoted the work of “Internet+ public security administrative service”, and used big data technology and modern technological means to promote intelligent social governance and raise the efficiency of preventing and combating law violations and crimes. It strengthened fire prevention, road traffic control and the security of places under surveillance. No extremely big fire accident occurred in 2016, and there was no big accident that killed more than 10 persons. The number of fire accidents, road traffic accidents and liability accidents at places under surveillance hit the new low in recent years. The percentage of people with the sense of security always surpassed 90%.

——Pushing forward the reform of the public security work. It promoted the reform of the household registration system and comprehensively implemented the residence card system to encourage rural migrants with the ability to live and work in cities to settle with families in cities. The ministry joined with the relevant departments in issuing the Opinions on Improving and Standardizing the Work of Police Offices in Issuing Certificates to effectively solve the problem of “weird certification”. It further standardized the use and management of identity cards to promote the real-name system and the construction of the social honesty system and improve the standard of the management and service of the window units. New achievements were made in streamlining administration, delegating more powers, improving regulation, and providing better services after adopting 28 measures to help people start businesses and making innovations and promoting the reforms of the system of training motor vehicle drivers through examination, the vehicle inspection system, the permanent residence system for aliens and submitting applications for certificates in alien places. The Ministry deepened the reform of the mechanism for the exercise of law enforcement power, implemented the opinions on the reform of the systems for accepting and filing cases, the systems for the assessment of the quality of law enforcement and accountability for errors in law enforcement, introduced experiments on the reform of the mechanism for centralized examination and verification and centralized transfer of criminal cases by legislative affairs departments. They further standardized the work procedure for the acceptance by public security organs of cases of suspected criminals transferred by administrative law enforcement organs. They deepened the reform of the enrolment and training of people’s police and the education in police schools and colleges and standardized the management of auxiliary personnel for police affairs.

——Deepening the standardization of law enforcement. The Ministry of Public Security implemented the Opinions of the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council on Deepening the Normalization of Law Enforcement by Public Security Organs, and adopted a number of systems for audio and video recordings of on-site law enforcement by public security organs and discretionary datum for public security administrative punishment, revised detailed rules for law enforcement by public security organs, and further detailed and clarified the standards for law enforcement and standardized behaviors of law enforcement. It promoted the standard transformation of places and premises for handling cases, explored the establishment of the mechanism for handling cases at one stop with cooperation among different police forces. The public security organs throughout the country basically completed the transformation of their standardized case handling zones and established more than 3,500 case handling centres. The public security organs at all levels strictly met the requirements for taking criminal suspects directly to the case-handling zones, giving them personal security checks, keeping watch on them and put them under video surveillance and recording to guarantee security for law enforcement and improve quality and efficiency. The ministry organized a new round of selection of model law enforcement units and named ten city and prefectural public security organs, 100 county public security organs and 200 grassroots police offices as national law enforcement model units. Public security organs at all levels continued to organize concentrated training, actual combat exercises and case assessments. The ministry organized two national video demonstrations on standard law enforcement for public security organs throughout the country, and trained civil police more than one million men times in 2016. It deepened the classified examinations for law enforcement qualifications. By the end of 2016, 2.087 million civil police acquired basic level law enforcement qualifications, 1.115 million civil police acquired middle class law enforcement qualifications and 40,500 civil police acquired high level law enforcement qualifications. In the light of the outstanding problems to which residents expressed strong complaints, the ministry united with the relevant departments in making special investigations on guaranteeing the right of lawyers to practice according to law and the application of arrest and online inspections of law enforcements.

(5) Judicial Administration

——Prison work. By the end of 2016, there were 680 prisons in China, and they detained 1.56 million prisoners. They strengthened the internal management and implemented the security and stability work system. They reported no major cases, no major work safety accidents and no major epidemics. They strengthened the work of education and remolding for prisoners, and the rate of acceptance for entry examination was 99.51%, and the psychological health and education popularization rate was 99.08%, and the composite assessment rate for the release of prisoners was 98.4%. They strictly standardized the execution work for commutation, parole and temporary sentence service outside prison. The Ministry issued the Provisions on the Procedure for Handling Temporary Sentence Service outside Prison and other systems, and further enforced the prison sentence execution system more rigorously.

——Drug rehabilitation work of judicial administrative organs. By the end of 2016, the drug rehabilitation houses of judicial administrative organs throughout the country accepted more than 250,000 drug addicts. They earnestly strengthened the work of medical service for drug rehabilitation, education and correction, and physical, mental and labor rehabilitation training for drug addicts. At present, there are 343 medical institutions. All drug addicts received legal and moral education and anti-drug education, 87.2% of them received professional and technical training and 95.5% of them accepted psychological consultation. The houses strengthened security and sanitation work, and they reported no drugs, no work and epidemic accidents.

——Community correction, and the work of resettlement, helping and education. The country accepted a total of 486,000 community correction targets in communities and released 498,000 community correction targets in 2016. By the end of the year, the country established a total of 9,353 community correction education bases, 25,204 community service bases, 8,216 employment bases. The bureaus of justice of 98% of the prefectures and counties have set up community correction work agencies. The country had more than 83,000 social workers and more than 690,000 social volunteers engaged in community correction, and established 1,560 county (district) community correction centres. The settlement, helping and education institutions at all levels accepted 582,000 released persons, installed more than 546,000 persons, and helped and educated more than 570,000 persons. By the end of 2016, the country established 273 transitional settlement bases, mainly with government funds, and 10,326 bases set up by relying on the enterprises.

——The work of legal service and legal assistance. By the end of 2016, China had more than 328,000 practicing lawyers, and 26,000 law firms. The lawyers throughout the country handled a total of 3,540,000 lawsuits of all categories, and more than 840,000 non-contentious legal affairs. Seven hundred and ten notaries were newly appointed in 2016 and 124 notaries were dismissed. By the end of the year, there were a total of 13,000 notaries in China. The Chinese notary organizations handled a total of 13,990,000 notary documents. The country handled more than 1,300,000 cases of legal assistance, and provided legal consulting service 8,020,000 men times in 2015.

——People’s mediation. By the end of 2016, China had 784,000 people’s mediation organizations and 3,852,000 people’s mediators. They made investigations of contradictions and disputes more than 3,014,000 times, and mediated 9,019,000 disputes of all kinds, the success rate of mediation was 97.5%. Among them, China had set up 45,000 industrial and specialized people’s mediation organizations with 87,000 people’s mediators, and resolved 1.402 million industrial and specialized disputes.

——National judicial examination and judicial evaluation. More than 438,000 people took part in the national judicial examination in 2016, and more than 6,000 forensic clinical evaluators took part in the training examination. Judicial evaluation managerial personnel and judicial evaluators from China’s 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities completed their training in different forms. The Evaluation Group of Judicial Appraisal for National Certification joined with the Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People’s Republic of China and the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment trained 50 new evaluators for accreditation and assessment. It carried out activities of verification of the ability of judicial appraisal institutions, and 2,051 appraisal institutions from 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities took part in the verification of ability for 6,060 items, and 87% of them passed the verification. By the end of 2016, 1,772 judicial appraisal institutions and 22,601 appraisers were examined and registered by judicial administrative organs. They finished a total of 505,200 appraisal businesses..