NPC Session Holds Fourth Plenary Meeting

The ongoing Third Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, held its fourth plenary meeting here this morning to hear reports on the work of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Top Party and state leaders, including Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Zhu Rongji, Hu Jintao, Wei Jianxing and Li Lanqing were present at the meeting, which was presided over by Wu Jieping, an executive chairman of the session and an executive member of its Presidium. Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court, delivered a report on the work of the courts over the past year. "The Supreme People's Court in 1999 focused on safeguarding judicial justice, adhered to rigorous enforcement of the law, and pushed ahead with reform of the court system," said the top Chinese judge.

Last year, he said, the Supreme People's Court handled 5,768 second-instance, retrial and dealth penalty examination cases, of which 5,544 have been concluded.

Moreover, he said, local courts across China in 1999 handled a total of 5.692 million first-instance cases, up 5.2 percent over the previous year. Chinese courts concluded the trials of more than 539,000 criminal cases, up 12.27 percent over the previous year.

More than 600,000 were given criminal penalties last year, which represented an increase of 14.02 percent. Courts across China in 1999 also handled a great number of cases in which the involved parties applied for the enforcement of court verdicts. More than 2.645 million such cases involving a total of over 249.7 billion yuan were concluded according to law, said Xiao, up 27.3 percent and 57.72 percent over 1998 respectively.

Chinese courts have uncovered 1,450 judicial personnel who violated the law or disciplines, down 42.28 percent from 1998, of whom 73 have been formally prosecuted, Xiao said. Xiao said that among many reform measures to be taken this year, the Supreme People's Court will start posting its verdicts online or having them published by the media.

Courts will also make efforts to promote open trial in a bid to guarantee judicial justice, reform its judge selection mechanism to allow more talented legal professionals compete for positions in courts.

In his report on procuratorial work to the NPC session, Han Zhubin, procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said that the past year has seen procuratorial bodies across the country earnestly fulfill their duties and achieve new progress in their work.

In 1999, China's procuratorial bodies issued warrants for arresting 663,518 criminal suspects, and prosecuted 672,367, up 10. 9 percent and 15 percent over 1998 respectively. "Last year procuratorial bodies across China investigated 38, 382 cases of embezzlement, bribery and dereliction of duty, up 9.4 percent from 1998," said the top Chinese prosecutor, adding that through these investigations, the procuratorial bodies helped retrieve direct economic losses worth 4.09 billion yuan for the state.

As watchdogs for the judicial bodies, prosecutors across China investigated 4,592 lawmen for abusing their power for personal gains.

In an effort to raise the competence and quality of procuratorates in the country, the Supreme People's Procuratorate started a nationwide training program for all heads of county- and prefecture- level procuratorates.

Six hundred and seventeen prosecutors were investigated for violations of the law and discipline, down 60.2 percent from 1998, Han said. Formal charges have been brought against 55 of them. Han pledged that Chinese procuratorates will continue the fight against criminal offenses for social stability and crack down upon official corruption, strengthen supervision over law enforcement and provide services for the overall economic development of the country.

He said that individual prosecutors will be given more power as well as be held more accountable for their prosecution decisions, and prosecutors will be subject to qualification examinations and competitions.

A total of 2,722 NPC deputies attended today's plenary meeting. Members of the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China's top advisory body also in session here since last week, attended the meeting as observers.

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