China's top procurator vowed yesterday to strike hard against violence, organized crime and cult activities, as well as to make efforts to regulate market order to ensure national security, economic safety and social stability.
Procuratorates at all levels this year will also step up their crackdown on graft, bribery and malpractice to help establish clean governments and make a bigger dent in the fight against corruption, said Chief Procurator Han Zhubin of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
He made the remarks yesterday when reporting to 2,731 deputies attending the Fifth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislative body.
The people's procuratorates at all levels investigated more than 36,000 corruption cases last year, involving more than 40,000 people. This helped recover economic losses valued at more than 4.1 billion yuan (US$495 million), said Han.
Among these cases, those involving more than 1 million yuan (US$120,000) reached 1,319, involving 9,452 staff working in government departments and judicial departments.
Of these employees, a total of 2,670 were officials at county level and higher, and six officials were at provincial and ministerial level, including Li Jiating, former governor of Southwest China's Yunnan Province.
He said the procuratorates at all levels will focus on cracking down on activities which destroy economic order, such as the manufacturing and selling of fake products, tax evasion, financial fraud, smuggling and pyramid selling.
Following China's accession to the World Trade Organization, Han said procuratorates at all levels will conduct their works according to open, transparent and non-discriminate principles.
They will expand international exchanges and judicial co-operation with their overseas counterparts to strike against transnational organized crimes, according to Han.
In his report, Han said people's procuratorates at all levels have increased the protection of human rights by providing judicial guarantee.
For example, procuratorates investigated more than 1,900 government staff believed to have conducted such illegal behaviors as illegal detention, extorting confessions, getting evidence by using force and making unlawful retaliation.
NPC deputies will examine Han's reports this week before voting on the report when the session concludes on Friday.
(China Daily March 12, 2002)
