BEIJING: Chinese prosecutors have stepped up supervision over verdicts and procedures in administrative litigation to ensure laws are accurately applied and justice is firmly upheld, according to a report being reviewed by legislators.
“In recent years, we’ve seen a significant growth in the number of cases in which litigants were unhappy with effective administrative adjudication and applied to us for supervising the court decisions,” Ying Yong, procurator-general of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, said while delivering the report to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, on Tuesday.
Data released in the report showed that from 2019 to last year, prosecutors across the country handled 87,000 such cases, up nearly threefold from the previous five years, with an average annual increase of 22 percent.
In the first nine months of this year alone, 18,000 cases were handled, consistent with the same period last year, the report added.
“When prosecutors identified errors in the effective rulings, they either lodged protests directly to courts or suggested that they hold retrials of relevant administrative lawsuits,” Ying said.
“If the verdicts were correct after review, the litigants’ application for supervision would not be supported, but prosecutors would give them further explanation of laws,” he added.
From January 2019 to September this year, procuratorial departments raised such differences and suggestions in 2,781 cases, leading to revised verdicts in some instances, according to the report.
During the same period, prosecutors also issued approximately 54,000 procuratorial suggestions to courts after finding irregularities in the handling of administrative litigation, such as the incorrect application of trial procedures, delayed hearings and illegal ruling delivery, it said, adding that 99 percent of the advice offered has been accepted by the courts.
In addition, prosecutors nationwide have played their supervisory role in filing public interest litigation, endeavoring to urge poorly performing government agencies to correct mistakes and promote law-based governance, it said. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
