China's national legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee, will take on the job of supervising the conduct of the country's 1. 5 million policemen, a senior legislator said on November 4.

"Since the cleaning up of the police forces is a great concern of the public and a long-term task, the legislature will for a long period of time list it as key part of legislative supervision over government and judicial work," said Cao Zhi, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

Cao made the remarks at the conclusion of a two-day meeting to review China's top cop Jia Chunwang's report on police conduct, issued by the NPC sub-committee Internal and Judicial Committee.

The Standing Committee, or executive body, of the NPC will also study the matter at its upcoming legislative session, Cao said.

The Chinese legislature has increased its efforts in checking the work of the government and judiciary in the past few years, and particular progress has been made during the period with courts and prosecutors.

Now it's the police's turn following a series of high-exposure cases of police brutality and corruption, Cao said.

The NPC will continue its supervisory duties of examining government and judiciary reports, launching law-enforcement inspection tours, and organizing people's deputies to assess government and judicial work, Cao said.

He asked police departments to focus more on shaking up staff at the grassroots level, since they account for more than 80 percent of all the policemen in the nation.

"Moreover, the situations of unfair and illegal law enforcement, abuse of power, and rudeness to the people are mostly perpetrated by police and staff in grassroots police stations," Cao said.

This sort of wrongdoing occurs because of the failure to observe existing laws, regulations and charters on police work, and leaders of the police departments must be more conscientious in this respect, Cao pointed out.

He requested that detailed rules on the recruitment, training, assessment, promotion, and dismissal of policemen be formulated so as to upgrade the general moral and professional level of China's police.

During the meeting, members of the NPC Internal and Judicial Committee also pointed out that lack of funds and poor equipment for police in some areas are dangerously affecting the normal operations of police departments.

"If this problem remains unattended for too long, the social stability and the regime would be in jeopardy," Cao said.

Before today's meeting, members of the subcommittee had conducted extensive investigations across the country on police work. (Xinhua)