On April 23, 2007, H.E. Mr. JIA Chunwang, Procurator General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China attended the 16^th Session of the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice which will be held in Vienna from 23 to 27 April, upon the invitation of H.E. Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, the Director General of the United Nations Office in Vienna and Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Procurator General JIA made a statement at the opening session of the Commission on the Status and Role of China's Procuratorates in the Field of Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention. The full text of the statement is as follows:

China's procuratorate (prosecution service) is the nation's legal supervisory authority established by the Constitution and performs the functions that include the investigation of crimes committed by public officials or duty crime, prosecution of criminal cases and supervision of litigation processes. China adopts a political structure that is composed of "one government with two judicial authorities" under the People's Congress which is the organ of state power. The administrative organization, judicial organs and procuratorial organs are set up by the decisions of the People's Congress. They report to the People's Congress, and accept its supervision. Procuratorial organ is of equal status with the administrative and the judicial organs, and has no subordination relationship to either of them. Procuratorial organ and judicial organ are both organizations of justice.

In China, there are four levels of procuratorates. There are a total of  3,649 People's Procuratorates, with a personnel staff of 210,000, among whom 140,000 are procurators.

In China, in accordance with the law, criminal prosecution is carried out in a system of the combined work of the public security organ, the procuratorial organ and the judicial organ, each having its own fields of responsibilities but working in coordination with each other and at the same time checking on each other. In criminal cases, public security organ is responsible for investigation, detention, arrest and interrogation; People's Procuratorate is responsible for authorization of arrest, and the investigation and prosecution of duty crimes such as bribery and corruption; People's Court is responsible for trial. It is stipulated in the Constitution and the relevant statutes that "the People's Procuratorates are responsible for legal supervision on criminal prosecution". People's Procuratorates supervise the investigation activities of the public security organ, trial procedures of the people's courts, the enforcement of judgments and sentences in criminal cases and the activities of prisons, detention houses, and labor reform organs. "People's Procuratorates exercise their prosecutorial power independently in accordance with the law, and shall not be intervened by the administrative organs, social groups and individuals."

Crime prevention is an important component of China's criminal justice. China has long taken prevention and punishment as two basic points of departure in criminal legislation and criminal justice and benchmark for fundamental criminal policies and justice. In combating and suppressing all kinds of crimes, equal emphasis is placed on crime prevention, both in terms of special prevention aimed at reforming criminals through physical labour and education and in terms of general and proactive prevention targeting the general public through awareness-raising campaigns. Prevention at the source is of paramount importance. The entire society is brought into the preventive efforts through which integrated measures of crime prevention have been developed. These include system construction, improving existing working mechanisms, conducting education campaigns and making full use of the traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, as well as radio broadcasting, TV and internet in order to block up any loopholes in the system and cultivate a law-abiding culture among the citizens. The legislative, administrative and the judicial bodies, and even the groups of the masses such as the labor unions, the Women's Federations, the Communist Youth League, and neighbourhood communities, and, indeed, the entire civil society have been involved in crime prevention. Procuratorates play an important and indispensable role in carrying out the policy of emphasizing both punishment and prevention. On the one hand, while combating crimes through exercising their functions of investigation, arrest and prosecution, the procoratorates also play their part in general and special crime prevention, either by way of educating the criminals, or educating the public by imparting law-related knowledge through case studies. On the other hand, within the procuratorates at all levels, special internal oversight agencies for duty crime prevention are set up, with the function of making procuratorial suggestions and legal advisory opinions to the institutions with exposed cases, and helping them establish or improve their rules and regulations, which will effectively prevent the duty crime such as bribery and corruption.

To strengthen the effectiveness of criminal justice is a salient point in China's criminal justice. Our practice is as follows:

First, we adhere to the principle of punishing the crime but with full protection of offenders' human rights. The guilt must be punished but at the same time the constitutional principle that "the State respects and safeguards the human rights" must be fully observed. The legal rights and interests of the suspects and the accused should be properly safeguarded. Procuratorates make full use of their legal supervisory functions entrusted to them by the Constitution to ensure that the crime is punished and the human rights safeguarded in accordance with the law and that the basic principles such as punishment must be legally prescribed, punishment must fit the crime, equal application of the criminal law and open trial, etc., are implemented so as to make the guilt punished and the innocent be exonerated.

Second, we pursue the criminal policy of tempering justice with mercy. During the course of executing the laws, the principle of suiting the punishment to the crime is always followed:  the serious crime will be given heavy punishment;  the minor crime light punishment; the punishment should suit the crime;  the innocent will be declared "not guilty". When cases involving circumstances that are suited for lenient, mitigated or even remission of punishment, leniency should be considered according to the specific situations of the case and the law. If a  judgment is deemed to be improper or wrong in contravention of the above policy, the People's Procuratorate can lodge a protest against it, and the judicial personnel found to have abused the power for personal benefits may be prosecuted for their criminal responsibility.

Third, we uphold the principle of giving equal weight to process justice and substantive justice. At various phases of investigation, prosecution and trial, the process must be governed by the law, preventing tendencies of emphasizing substantive aspects over procedural ones and suppression of crime over protection of rights. The status of suspects and defendants in litigation process must be duly respected and their legal rights and interests such as right of defence and right to appeal must be guaranteed. These rights shall not be deprived of them or restricted. Getting confession through coercion and torture is strictly prohibited. In recent years, procuratorates have intensified legal supervision with stringent measures to deal with cases of using torture to obtain confession. They have been very effective in preventing and eventually eliminating such phenomena. 

Fourth, we adhere to the principle of judging according to the evidence, namely, we rely more on the evidence than confessions. In accordance with the law, the accused shall not be convicted solely on his or her confession in the absence of any other evidence, but a conviction can be given on the basis of solid and sufficient evidence even if without a confession from the accused. The conviction must be based on "the clear facts with solid and sufficient evidence". Procuratorates can, by way of exercising supervision over investigation and trial, rectify acts of illegally collecting evidence, listening only to one side, and totally relying on confessions. For cases that are without sufficient evidence, they can make the decision of nol-pros or repealing the prosecution before the sentence, to ensure full observance of this principle.

In the criminal justice system of China, the procuratorates have a special function of directly investigating the corruption cases such as the crime of malfeasance by state functionaries, and the crime of bribery and embezzlement. They are, therefore, an important anti-corruption force of the state. Acting under the overall strategies of the State to combat corruption and promote integrity, which call for an integrated approach of addressing both the symptom and the root-causes of corruption, punishing as well as preventing, with more emphasis on prevention,  the procuratorates investigate and deal with an average of 30,000 to 40,000 cases of so-called duty crimes per year such as bribery and corruption. This is an important contribution to the social stability and economic development of China.

Mr. Chairman, UNODC, since its inception and especially under the leadership of Mr. Costa, has achieved a great many results in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice. China highly appreciates the fruitful work done by the UNODC and is willing to broaden its cooperation, multilateral and bilateral, with the United Nations and the UN member states in crime prevention and criminal justice to benefit from the useful experience of other countries in this field for further improvement of China's criminal justice system which has its own characteristics. China has participated in the elaboration of a series of international criminal law instruments and has signed and approved a number of international conventions such as the international drug control conventions, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the U.N. Convention against Corruption. China carries out its obligations under these instruments seriously and has amended domestic laws where it is required of the States Parties by the conventions. For instance, China has expanded the scope of application for money-laundering and commercial fraud. On international judicial cooperation, by January this year, China has signed 86 judicial assistance agreements with 52 countries, among which 54 are on civil and criminal judicial assistance, 28 on extradition, and 4 on transfer of sentenced persons. Procuratorates in China have also signed 97 cooperation agreements on prosecution with 83 countries. Here I wish to stress that, as China's central authority for judicial assistance under the UN Convention against Corruption and as one of the major sponsors of International Association of Anti-corruption Authorities (IAACA), the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China would like to enter into diversified, direct and result-oriented cooperation at all levels with the UNODC and the anti-corruption bodies of various countries and international organizations in combating and preventing the crime of bribery and corruption as well as in the field of criminal justice.

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