COURT AND PROCURACY REPORTS STRESS ANTI-

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 001700 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS JUSTICE FOR CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN, OPDAT, AND KYLE LATIMER, OIA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM ECON KJUS KIPR CH SUBJECT: COURT AND PROCURACY REPORTS STRESS ANTI- CORRUPTION, REVIEW OF DEATH PENALTY CASES Summary -------------- ¶1. (SBU) During his March 13 presentation of the Supreme People's Court Work Report at China's annual legislative session, Court President Xiao Yang discussed death penalty reforms and made repeated reference to the need for supervision of the judiciary. Procurator-General Jia Chunwang highlighted anti-corruption efforts in his presentation on the work of the Supreme People's Procuratorate at the same session and said there is a shortage of prosecutors for handling the now-required second-instance higher court trials for death penalty cases. While Jia referred to corruption prosecutions at the State Food and Drug Administration, he did not mention the scandal that took down Shanghai leader Chen Liangyu, as the case has not yet moved to prosecution. Comment: Aside from discussion of death penalty review procedures, this year's judicial reports reiterated well-worn promises of coming improvements and are unlikely to assuage rising public concerns over corruption and rights protection. End Summary and Comment. ¶2. (U) During his March 13 report to the National People's Congress (NPC),Supreme People's Court (SPC) President Xiao Yang announced that local, intermediate, and higher level courts handled 8,205,007 cases in 2006, an increase of 2.07%. Of this total, there were 798,572 criminal cases, 4,831,043 civil cases, 125,976 administrative cases, and 2,149,625 enforcement cases. Trial-level courts handled 701,379 criminal cases, in which 889,042 persons were convicted and 1,713 persons acquitted. Under a pilot program conducted in ten higher-level courts, 378 victims and family members received RMB 7.8 million in state compensation. There were 429,852 prisoners who received reductions in sentence and 20,254 who received parole. ¶3. (U) Procurator General Jia Chunwang reported that procuracies approved detention for 891,620 defendants and filed suit against 999,086 defendants in 2006. Of this total, there were 47,228 detentions and 46,607 filings in murder, bombing, rape, and kidnapping cases and 419,578 detentions and 445,849 filings in burglary and robbery offenses. There were 24,211 detentions and 27,728 filings for economic crimes, of which there were 3,729 detentions and 3,634 filings for intellectual property offenses, an increase of 16.7% and 12.6%, respectively. Death Penalty Review -------------- ¶4. (U) Both reports discussed implementation of death penalty review procedures introduced in 2006, which mandate second-instance trials by higher courts in all death penalty cases and review of death penalty verdicts by the SPC. The SPC is prepared to assume final review of all death penalty cases, Xiao stated. In addition, lower-level courts are currently conducting trials in second-instance death penalty cases. Through these measures, courts will limit imposition of the death penalty to the minority of cases that present the most egregious criminal conduct and severe harm to the public, the report noted. The use of the death penalty should be strictly controlled through perfecting final review and strengthening human rights protection, Xiao stated. ¶5. (U) Jia Chunwang echoed SPC President Xiao's comments on death penalty reforms during his report. Because courts handling second-instance death penalty cases have not been handling trials, as is now generally required, local procuracies do not have specialized prosecutors able to handle those cases. The provincial procuracies will make internal adjustments to ensure that this task can be properly handled, Jia stated. IPR Cases -------------- ¶6. (U) According to Xiao, courts handled 2,277 criminal intellectual property infringement cases BEIJING 00001700 002 OF 003 involving 3,508 defendants in 2006. In the civil arena, the courts handled 14,056 cases, of which 5,751 cases involved copyright infringement, 2,378 cases involved trademark infringement, 3,227 cases involved patent infringement, and 1,188 cases involved unfair competition. New Mediation Mechanism -------------- ¶7. (U) Courts annulled, altered, or held unlawful or ineffective agency action in 14,250 administrative cases and upheld agency action in 37,360 cases. Under a new mechanism, the courts have explored a form of mediation in which the involved administrative agency agrees to modify its action in return for the plaintiff dismissing suit. The courts have used this method in 32,146 cases, which represents 33.82% of the total of administrative cases. Corruption -------------- ¶8. (U) Courts handled 23,733 corruption and dereliction of duty cases, of which there were 359 commercial bribery and 8,310 official bribery cases. Of the official bribery cases, there were nine cases involving officials at the provincial or ministerial level. ¶9. (SBU) Jia Chunwang said the procuracy handled 33,668 corruption cases involving 40,041 defendants, of which 29,966 have been formally charged. There were 18,241 cases formally established that involve major dereliction of duty offenses, of which 623 cases involved corruption and acceptance of bribes with an amount of RMB1 million or more. There were 1,670 fugitives arrested, 3,878 defendants involved in rural corruption, 10,742 defendants involved in state-owned enterprise corruption and 930 defendants involved in investigative misconduct (such as illegal detention or forced confessions). Jia cited 9,582 commercial bribery cases with RMB1.5 billion involved. He specifically mentioned the investigation of officials connected with the State Food and Drug Administration, but did not refer to the year's biggest corruption case in Shanghai, apparently because the case has not yet been submitted to the procuracy. ¶10. (U) The procuracies handled 16,662 supervision cases in which officials failed to establish a case. There were 14,858 persons who should have been detained, 10,703 cases that should have been filed, and 2,846 defendants whose sentences were improperly reduced or who improperly received parole, according to Jia. Procuracies dismissed 4,569 cases in which a criminal process was improperly used in civil commercial disputes. Jia acknowledged that there were 233 cases involving detentions that exceeded legal time limits. ¶11. (U) The procuracies appealed in 3,161 criminal cases and 12,669 civil and administrative cases and prosecuted 2,987 judicial personnel for duty crimes. The procuracies handled 477,596 petition and visit cases, Jia stated. Supervising the Judiciary -------------- ¶12. (U) Xiao reported that judicial supervision continues to be a problem, with 292 judges investigated for violations of the law and 109 judges convicted criminally. The courts firmly accept the supervision of the National People's Congress and its standing committee, Xiao stated, a theme he repeated several times. Last year, the SPC conducted an internal investigation to address 241 suggestions from the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). ¶13. (U) Continuing problems in the courts include poor quality of judicial decisionmaking, excessive time required to handle cases and ineffective enforcement of judgments. The main reasons for these phenomena are (1) a number of judges lack the ability to properly manage cases, (2) some judges lack BEIJING 00001700 003 OF 003 professional ethics and maintain a biased and subjective attitude in deciding cases and (3) a small number of judges and court leaders distort the law for their personal benefit. A focus on criminal cases in 2007 should stress anti-corruption and strict punishment of corruption and dereliction of duty offenses. The procuracies face similar problems, according to Jia, who cited an insufficient ability to conduct legal supervision, inadequate training of prosecutors, lack of standardization in law enforcement, unlawful acts by prosecutorial staff and inadequate resources in the central and western regions. Comment -------------- ¶14. (SBU) Aside from the references to new death penalty review procedures, this year's judicial reports, which traditionally garner lower approval ratings than other NPC reports, followed the same format as previous years and revealed little that was new. Xiao and Jia, who will both be retiring before the next NPC, admitted continuing problems and renewed old promises to make improvements, but their familiar rhetoric is unlikely to assuage rising public concerns over corruption and rights protection. RANDT