Zhang Jun: "People-centered" carefully handles complaint and appeal cases with heart and affection to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities

Source: Supreme People's Procuratorate

Zhang Jun said at the 31st meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress on the work of the People's Procuratorate in handling cases of accusations and appeals

"People-centered" handles accusation and appeal cases with heart and affection

Promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity

Handling cases of accusations and appeals is an important way for procuratorial organs to perform their legal supervision duties and bring mass petitions into the orbit of the rule of law, and is an important part of the people's petitioning work, which is directly related to the people's rights and interests and social fairness and justice. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly required that great efforts be made to properly handle the prominent problems of petitioning and solve the reasonable and legitimate interests of the masses; in the important speech of "July 1st", he particularly emphasized "safeguarding social fairness and justice, and focusing on solving the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development and the problem of the people's urgent difficulties and expectations". The "Opinions of the CENTRAL Committee of the Communist Party of China on Strengthening the Legal Supervision of Procuratorial Organs in the New Era" issued this year requires "upholding and developing the 'Fengqiao Experience' in the new era, improving the procuratorial work mechanism for accusations and appeals, and improving the system for handling mass petitions." How can procuratorial organs implement the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping and the deployment requirements of the Party Central Committee, and better perform the procuratorial functions of accusations and appeals "with the people as the center"? On October 21, Zhang Jun, chief procurator of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, delivered a report by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on the work of the People's Procuratorate in handling accusation and appeal cases at the 31st meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress.

"Procuratorial organs at all levels conscientiously implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions and the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee, adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, adhere to the people-centered, with a high degree of political consciousness, rule of law consciousness, procuratorial consciousness, with heart and affection to handle complaint and appeal cases, strive to resolve contradictions and disputes, effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the people, and provide a strong judicial guarantee for high-quality economic and social development." Zhang Jun reported on the basic situation of procuratorial organs receiving complaints and petitions from the masses in recent years. He said: In recent years, as a large number of contradictions and disputes have entered the judicial field, the situation of procuratorial organs receiving complaints and petitions from the masses has undergone obvious changes -- the total number of petitions and petitions has been operated at a high level, the proportion of duplicate petitions has been high, the problem of petitioning at higher levels has been prominent, civil administrative appeals have risen sharply, and online petitions have become an important channel.

In response to these new situations and new changes, what new measures have the procuratorial organs taken?

From January to August this year, procuratorial organs across the country received a total of 656,000 mass petitions, down 4.2% from the same period in 2019; of which 207,000 were duplicate letters and petitions, accounting for 31.6% of the total number of petitions, a decrease of 2.5 percentage points. The Supreme People's Procuratorate received 138,000 cases, accounting for 21% of the total number of petitions, a decrease of 0.8 percentage points from the same period in 2019! Zhang Jun reported on the main practices and achievements of procuratorial organs in handling cases of accusations and appeals and resolving contradictions and disputes -- comprehensively implementing the "reply to each case" of mass petitions and petitions and responding to the demands of the masses in a timely manner; the chief procurator took the lead in handling difficult and complicated cases of accusations, appeals, and petitions, giving play to the "head goose" effect; innovating public examination in the form of hearings to solve both the "legal knot" and the "heart knot"; promoting the substantive resolution of contradictions and disputes and realizing the organic unification of the "three effects"; and vigorously carrying out state judicial assistance to solve the urgent needs of the petitioning masses Strengthen supervision and correction of errors, promote the improvement of the quality and efficiency of judicial case handling, persist in treating both the symptoms and the root causes, and strengthen the management of the source of litigation in cases of accusations and appeals.

For some important measures, Zhang Jun explained with intuitive data and examples - from March 2019 to August this year, procuratorial organs across the country received a total of 2.425 million letters and petitions from the masses, all of which were informed within 7 days of "who has received and who is handling", and the response rate of the process or result within 3 months exceeded 90%; from January 2018 to August this year, the chief procurators of procuratorates at all levels handled 43,000 cases of letters and petitions, with a resolution rate of more than 80%, promoting the solution of a number of "old and difficult" problems; from January to August this year, Organized 5,036 public hearings, 2.2 times that of the same period last year, and 73.4% of the respondents expressed interest on the spot after the hearing; this year's deployment of normalization to promote the "substantive resolution of administrative disputes" and the release of guiding cases to standardize the handling of cases, as of August, a total of 4,018 administrative disputes were resolved, including 40 cases of disputes for more than 20 years, 212 cases of more than 10 years and less than 20 years; from January to August this year, 12,073 judicial aid cases were handled, and more than 200 million yuan of relief funds were issued, up 61.2% year-on-year, respectively. and 70%, an increase of 1.3 times over the same period in 2019; the Supreme People's Procuratorate has put forward serious opinions on pursuing responsibility for 22 unjust cases that have been wrongfully detained for more than 10 years.

"In recent years, procuratorial organs have made some progress and achievements in handling accusations and appeals, but there is still a big gap compared with the requirements of the party Central Committee and the expectations of the people, and there are still many deficiencies in their work." In the report, Zhang Jun pointed out in the light of specific cases that there are four deficiencies in the procuratorial work of accusations and appeals: First, "from a political point of view" has not been done enough. Some procuratorial organs and procuratorial personnel have not understood and done a good job in this work from the people-centered political height, and some cases have only adhered to the bottom line of "not violating the law" in form, handled cases on a case-by-case basis, and mechanically administered justice, only satisfying the conclusion of procedures and not paying attention to the results of case handling, and failing to let the masses of the people truly feel fairness and justice. Second, the mechanism for comprehensive management of letters and petitions has yet to be improved. Some procuratorial organs have not taken the initiative to report to the party committee and the government on social governance problems discovered in the course of handling cases, and the establishment of effective mechanisms for jointly handling mass petitions is not effective. The third is to complain that the quality and ability of the appeal procuratorial team are not suitable. Some procuratorial personnel are not afraid, unwilling, or good at directly doing the work of petitioning the masses, and when they encounter contradictions and difficulties in petitioning, they walk around the blockages, and lack the ability to control the innovative use of public hearings and other methods to review and handle difficult and complicated petitioning cases. Fourth, informatization and intelligent support need to be further strengthened. The information system for procuratorial organs handling accusation and appeal cases has not yet been interconnected with petitioning departments, public security organs, people's courts, and so forth, and cannot realize coordinated case handling and the sharing and utilization of petitioning data.

In the face of the inadequacies of procuratorial work on accusations and appeals, how to make up for shortcomings, strengths and weaknesses?

Zhang Jun proposed four improvement measures: adhere to the people-centered approach, better practice the original mission in the procuratorial work of accusations and appeals; deepen the implementation of the "reply to each piece" system of mass petitions and letters, and further promote the conclusion of the case; continue to promote the construction of informatization to provide more powerful support for handling accusation and appeal cases; and comprehensively strengthen the construction of the prosecution team of accusations and appeals. How can these four measures really "land"? Zhang Jun made an in-depth explanation on some key issues -- "From the high plane of stressing politics, we should profoundly understand and accurately grasp the positioning of the procuratorial work on accusations and appeals in the new era, inherit the 'red gene' of the people's procuratorial system, and test and deepen the results of the study of party history and the education and rectification of the political and legal contingent in the procuratorial work of accusations and appeals!" "Implement the lifelong system of case serial numbers, improve the quality and effectiveness evaluation standards for the 'case-to-case ratio' of petitions, implement systems such as the responsibility of the first office, the handling of cases by the leaders of the hospital, and regular notification, improve the quality and efficiency of the handling of petition cases, and prevent procedures from idling and contradictions from going up!" "Deeply use big data to promote the sharing of petitioning data of petitioning departments and political and legal organs, strengthen the analysis of petitioning data and similar cases, grasp the real-time dynamics and laws of petitioning, and provide decision-making reference for national governance!" "It is necessary to allocate more capable forces to the post of accusation and appeal procurator, and gradually change the situation in which the team is not refined and the ability is not strong!"

The people's procuratorate guards the people's heart. It is related to the worries, worries, and worries of the masses of the people, and no matter how difficult the work is, we must do a good job! Zhang Jun said that the national procuratorial organs will unite more closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, conscientiously implement the deliberation opinions of the Standing Committee, better perform the procuratorial functions of accusations and appeals, promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities, and make new contributions to the realization of the second centenary goal of comprehensively building a socialist modern power.