China's top judge, top procurator deliver work reports

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The second plenary meeting of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) was held Friday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The report on the work of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) delivered by top judge Zhou Qiang as well as the report on the work of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) by Procurator General Cao Jianming were heard at the meeting.

On graft cases:

China's court system has processed graft cases involving 101 former officials at the provincial and ministerial level or above over the past five years, according to the SPC work report.

Chief Justice Zhou Qiang delivers a work report of the Supreme People's Court in Beijing on March 9, 2018. /Xinhua Photo

Meanwhile, courts at various levels have processed 195,000 graft cases from 2013 to 2017, implicating 263,000 people.

A total of 13,000 people were convicted for bribery, the report said.

On correction of wrongful convictions:

In the past five years, Chinese courts at various levels have overturned convictions in 6,747 criminal cases after retrials, according to the SPC report.

Among the cases, 39 major wrongful convictions were corrected, including the cases of Huugjilt and Nie Shubin, the chief justice noted .

"We have issued guidelines to prevent wrongful convictions and adhere to the principles of legality, evidence judgment and presumption of innocence," he highlighted.

On amnesty:

A total of 31,527 prisoners were granted amnesty across China in the past five years, according to SPC report.

Chinese courts have strengthened efforts to protect human rights in judicial practices.

Death penalty decisions were strictly reviewed to make sure that death sentences only apply to an extremely small number of criminals for extremely severe offenses, said the report.

On social security:

Procurator-General Cao Jianming delivers a work report of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate in Beijing on March 9, 2018. /Xinhua Photo

In the past five years, the procuratorial organs have approved the arrest of 4.53 million criminal suspects and prosecuted 7.17 million criminal suspects, down 3.4 percent and up 19.2 percent respectively from the previous five years, according to the SPP work report.

Since 2016, the authorities have prosecuted 51,000 people involved in significant telecom cases, and cyberspace fraud, said Procurator-General Cao.

A total of 8,932 people have been prosecuted for crimes related to mafia-like organizations, Cao added.

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