China's procuratorial departments should further curb abuses of power by government officials, especially those committed by police officers and officials from judicial departments, said a senior prosecutor in Beijing Monday.
Jia Chunwang, Deputy Procurator-General of the Supreme People'sProcuratorate (SPP), made the remarks when addressing a national conference attended by prosecutors from all over the country, which ended here Monday.
Jia said the prosecutors should tighten their efforts and improve their investigative ability to curb corruption.
The Chinese government has long regarded the fight against corruption in executive and judicial departments as a major task. However, the general public still widely complains about rampant corruption in such departments.
The recent 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a national conference on the judiciary both urged greater supervision of administrative activities and stiffer penalties for corruption in the judicial sector.
Jia said procuratorial departments should try harder to combat offences stemming from the abuse of power, and urged that bigger and more influential cases be cracked.
They should adopt effective measures, and improve working systems and their investigative capacity, especially the ability to crack big corruption cases, he said, stressing that the procuratorial departments should better assume their legal duty.
As a former minister of Public Security, Jia is very experienced in fighting corruption and judicial affairs.
He said procuratorial departments should further strengthen their supervisory role, safeguarding justice and facilitate the achievement of a fair and just society.
As people's knowledge and awareness of the law continued to grow, the general public in China have increasingly demanded fairness and justice for all society.
"Prosecutors have to respond to the call of the public," he said, urging the procuratorial departments safeguard the honor andauthority of the law and give full play to their role in safeguarding justice.
Under Chinese law procuratorial departments are independent prosecutors.
He called on procuratorial departments to strengthen their supervision of case investigations, lawsuits and the carrying out of sentences.
SPP Procurator-General Han Zhubin and SPP Deputy Procurator-General Liang Guoqing similarly urged a fight against corruption during the three-day national conference, calling for the setting up of a system to effectively prevent the abuse of power.
(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2003)
