Supreme People's Procuratorate and Inspection Commission
Zhang Zhijie, deputy ministerial-level full-time member:
This year, we will focus on doing a good job
"Minor cases" such as drunk driving and minor injuries
Zhang Zhijie, deputy ministerial-level full-time member of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and Inspection Commission
Minor criminal offenses such as drunk driving and minor injury are "small cases" in the sense of criminal law, but they are "big things" for the parties. When the procuratorial organs deployed this year's work, they proposed: Handle "small cases" well with heart and affection. How to do it well?
A few days ago, a reporter from the Beijing News interviewed Zhang Zhijie, a deputy ministerial-level full-time member of the Supreme Procuratorial Inspection Commission. Zhang Zhijie introduced that this year, the procuratorial organs will focus on handling "small cases" such as minor injuries, epidemic-related, protection of citizens' personality rights, drunk driving, and "small theft".
significance
"Small cases" are "big things" for the parties
Beijing News: In January this year, the National Procurator General (Expanded) Conference was held, and when deploying this year's work, it was proposed: Handle "small cases" with heart and affection to achieve the organic unification of the "three effects". How is a "small case" defined? What are the characteristics of "small cases"?
Zhang Zhijie: The so-called "small cases" refer to minor criminal cases in the sense of criminal law. Compared with cases of serious violence such as intentional homicide, arson, explosion, and other serious violence and major economic crimes, the nature and circumstances of such crimes are relatively minor, and the maximum statutory sentence is less than three years.
"Small cases" are usually common cases that occur frequently and generally occur around the masses. For example, dangerous driving, minor injuries, theft, etc., the value and impact of these cases may not be large, and most of them belong to the large number of common cases in criminal cases.
Beijing News: Why do we emphasize handling "small cases"?
Zhang Zhijie: What should we think of "small cases"? The key is from what point of view, from what position. For judicial organs, "small cases" may be commonplace, or even somewhat insignificant, but for the parties, ordinary people, especially vulnerable groups, it may be a matter of great importance to the fate of a family, which is often a "big thing". Improper handling is likely to affect the people's sense of security, happiness, and gain, and affect the people's evaluation of judicial justice. Therefore, the "small case" is actually not small, it shows the great love of the rule of law and reflects the justice in the hearts of the people.
It can be said that these "small cases" are a barometer of the masses' feeling of the level of socialist rule of law, a touchstone for testing the people's nature and fairness of the judiciary, and countless "small cases" constitute China's vision of the rule of law.
method
Resolutely eradicated
Procedural closure, procedural idling, mechanical justice
Beijing News: If the "small case" is not handled well, what problems will it cause?
Zhang Zhijie: In practice, some "small cases" and disputes among ordinary people have caused contradictions to intensify due to improper handling, and even caused outrage in groups, which has a very bad effect and affects the credibility of law enforcement and justice, which is very worthy of in-depth summary and reflection.
Beijing News: How can the procuratorial organs handle "small cases"?
Zhang Zhijie: In order to effectively handle every specific case, we must resolutely put an end to procedural closure, procedural idleness, and mechanical justice.
The judicial case-handling process is originally a process of exploring the value of judicial provisions and accurately applying the law on the basis of determining the facts, therefore, procuratorial case-handling personnel should earnestly change the judicial concept, pay attention to the unity of the "three effects", conduct in-depth research around whether the facts of the case are clear, whether the legal provisions are clear, whether there is a value conflict, whether the results of the handling are in line with public perception, and actively carry out work such as admitting guilt and accepting punishment, criminal settlement, etc., comprehensively considering heavenly reason, national law, and human feelings, so that the judiciary has both strength and temperature. Achieve the unification of political, legal and social effects.
Beijing News: This year, the Supreme People's Procuratorate will study and formulate guidance on handling minor injury cases. What is the national volume of minor injury cases each year? What is the current status of such cases? What kind of case handling effect is the guidance hope to achieve?
Zhang Zhijie: For example, from January 2018 to June 2021, procuratorial organs across the country made a total of 84,072 decisions to approve arrests, 33,812 decisions not to approve arrests, 156,880 public prosecutions, and 37,976 non-prosecutions.
It should be said that the caseload is relatively large, and from the perspective of handling, the non-arrest rate of minor injury cases is 28.7%, and the non-prosecution rate is 19.5%, and the overall rate is still relatively low. At the same time, in such cases, the causes are mostly civil disputes or occasional contradictions, and the grasp of laws and policies in different regions in the handling of cases is quite different, and the proportion of cases sued to the court that are sentenced to suspended sentences and exempted from criminal punishment is relatively high, and the proportion of complaints and petitions by the parties is high. The reason is that some cases simply complete the procedural procedures, but the work of criminal settlement, diversified interpretation, and interpretation of the law and reasoning has not been done well, resulting in intensification of contradictions and cross-level petitions.
How procuratorial organs can give full play to their procuratorial functions, actively make good use of the criminal reconciliation system and the plea leniency system, and actively resolve social contradictions are precisely the problems that need to be resolved in current practice.
To study and formulate guiding opinions on handling minor injury cases is to actively resolve social contradictions and promote the construction of a harmonious society while unifying the standards for handling similar cases.
focus
Handle epidemic-related cases
Pay attention to case guidance and warning education
Beijing News: At present, the country is still in the stage of normalization of epidemic prevention and control, how many cases related to the epidemic are handled by procuratorial organs? When handling such "small cases", what measures will the procuratorial organs take to ensure the organic unity of the "three effects"?
Zhang Zhijie: Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, as of December last year, procuratorial organs have accepted and arrested 8,509 cases involving 11,380 people, of which 6,966 cases and 9,205 people have been approved for arrest; a total of 13,742 cases involving 19,601 people have been examined and prosecuted, of which 11,164 cases and 15,307 people have been prosecuted.
In the handling of cases, procuratorial organs have established a guidance group for procuratorial work related to epidemic prevention and control, coordinating and guiding procuratorial organs in all localities to carry out various epidemic-related procuratorial work in an orderly manner in accordance with the law, and persisting in running the party's absolute leadership through the entire process and all links of procuratorial work. In accordance with the needs of judicial practice, the Supreme People's Procuratorate promptly formulated and improved judicial policies, and always adhered to the people-centered approach, implementing the criminal policy of blending leniency with severity. Resolutely and quickly punish illegal and criminal acts that seriously hinder the order of epidemic prevention and control and seriously endanger the lives and health of the people; for some minor crimes that have a cause, implement the policy of leniency, and do not arrest those who can not be arrested and those who can not be prosecuted in accordance with the law, so as to promote the restoration of social production and life order as soon as possible.
Another major feature of handling epidemic-related cases is that special attention is paid to strengthening case guidance and warning education, and in the early stage of the outbreak, we broke the routine of issuing typical cases and released 10 batches of 55 typical cases related to epidemic prevention and control in a series of 10 batches of special topics in a weekly frequency. Since last year, 4 batches of 19 typical cases have been issued on epidemic-related robbery, nucleic acid testing fraud, and the manufacture and sale of fake vaccines, which fully reflects and effectively solves the phased judicial needs of epidemic prevention and control.
Strengthen procuratorial performance of duties
Punish crimes of violating personality rights in accordance with law
Beijing News: In addition to minor injury cases and epidemic-related cases, what types of "small cases" are the procuratorial organs focusing on this year? What measures will be taken to improve the effectiveness of handling "small cases"?
Zhang Zhijie: In addition to minor injury cases and epidemic-related cases, the procuratorial organs will also focus on the handling of the following types of "small cases" this year, including cases involving the protection of citizens' personality rights, drunk driving cases, "small theft" cases, and illegal fishing for aquatic products in the Yangtze River Basin.
In terms of cases involving the protection of citizens' personality rights, this year the Supreme People's Procuratorate released the 34th batch of Guiding Cases with the theme of "Criminal Protection of Personality Rights in the Internet Age", which mainly focuses on the criminal protection of mental personality rights. For example, In Case No. 137 (Hangzhou Woman's Courier Was Rumored and Derailed), the victim Gu Mou suffered a "social death" because he was defamed, causing his work and life to be seriously affected; the victim of Procuratorial Case No. 138 committed suicide by taking poison because his nude video and pictures were spread on the Internet.
In the next step, the Supreme People's Procuratorate will continue to strengthen the protection of personality rights, strengthen procuratorial performance, punish crimes infringing on personality rights according to law; strengthen normative guidelines, study and formulate relevant normative documents; strengthen case guidance, select and publish typical cases, and provide high-quality "rule of law products" and "procuratorial products" for the people with active and dynamic procuratorial performance.
In terms of drunk driving cases, in 2021, the national procuratorial organs prosecuted 350,000 people in dangerous driving cases dominated by drunk driving, and dangerous driving became the crime with the largest number of criminal prosecutions for three consecutive years. In 2022, we will adhere to the strict control of drunk driving unswervingly, fully implement the criminal policy of blending leniency and severity, strengthen crime prevention, coordinate with the people's courts and public security organs, comprehensively use criminal, administrative and civil means to promote comprehensive management and systematic governance, effectively implement the strict control of drunk driving, enhance the public's awareness of compliance with the law, reduce the incidence of drunk driving, and maintain the safety of the people's travel.
In terms of "small theft" cases, for cases such as homeless people stealing box lunches and stealing vegetables by doctors, it is necessary to analyze specifically the essential requirements of social harm and specific problems from the perspective of social governance. For the act of "multiple theft of small amounts of property", the conviction standard of "theft more than three times in two years" cannot be mechanically applied, and the number of thefts cannot be simply used to discuss, but should be comprehensively considered such as the cause of the crime, motive, time of conduct, mode of conduct, object of conduct, amount of theft, etc., it is necessary to accurately grasp the social harmfulness of the behavior and the subjective malignancy of the perpetrator, taking into account natural reason, state law, and human feelings, not only to ensure the intensity and efficiency of the crackdown on crime, but also to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the parties to the greatest extent and reduce negative social factors.
(Source: Beijing News Author: Sha Xueliang)