China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate: Continue to promote solutions to the problem of “improper punishment”

China News Service, Beijing, October 23 (Reporter Zhang Su) "We will promote fair justice, standardize law enforcement, and equally protect the legitimate rights and interests of all business entities through protests and retrial prosecutorial recommendations," Zhang Xueqiao, Deputy Prosecutor General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China, said in Beijing on the 23rd.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate held a press conference on "Handling Effective Administrative Adjudication and Supervision Cases with High Quality and Efficiency" on the same day. The reporter learned from the meeting that since the "Special Judicial Supervision of Illegal Off-site Law Enforcement and Profitable Law Enforcement" was deployed last year, the procuratorial organs have handled more than 8,000 administrative prosecution cases of various types, involving more than 1.26 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), of which more than 1,800 were administratively effective judgment and supervision cases.

Zhang Xueqiao said that the procuratorial organs continue to promote the solution of the problem of "undue punishment", strengthen the supervision of the problem of "duplicate punishment", and implement equal protection for all types of business entities.

He said that in response to prominent issues such as "heavy penalties for minor offenses" and "serious penalties for minor offenses", in addition to supervising individual cases, the procuratorial organs also pushed relevant administrative agencies to improve law enforcement mechanisms and unify law enforcement standards. A certain local procuratorate signed meeting minutes with relevant administrative departments to build a collaborative mechanism to prevent "heavy fines for minor offenses", which resulted in the reduction or exemption of penalties for more than 20 minor cases, with a total fine reduction of more than 2.7 million yuan.

In October 2024, the Supreme People's Procuratorate deployed special activities to supervise administrative effective referees. The reporter learned from this meeting that in the past two years, focusing on issues such as strong profit-oriented law enforcement and justice, "improper punishment", and violations of "no penalty" reported by market operating entities, the national procuratorial organs have handled more than 3,900 cases of effective administrative judgment and supervision involving enterprises, supervising and correcting illegal administrative behaviors that infringe on various operating entities, and maintaining market order in accordance with the law.

A typical case released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate shows that an asset leasing company signed a land use rights transfer contract with a county natural resources bureau. The administrative agency breached the contract, and the leasing company filed a lawsuit for administrative compensation, but the court's final judgment did not support it. After accepting the application for supervision, the procuratorial organ filed a protest in accordance with the law. The retrial court ruled that the Natural Resources Bureau should compensate nearly one million yuan for losses and urged the administrative agency to keep its promises.

Zhang Xueqiao said that procuratorial organs nationwide will continue to deepen the supervision of effective administrative judgments and further increase supervision of cases that harm the vital interests of the people and affect the fairness and authority of the law.