China News Service, February 2nd. Miao Shengming, Director of the First Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, introduced on the 2nd that in 2020, a total of more than 6,900 people were approved for the arrest of epidemic-related criminal offences and more than 10,300 people were prosecuted.
In order to meet the needs of handling cases, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and relevant political and legal departments issued guidance to punish crimes that endanger the epidemic in accordance with the law; make arrangements with the National Health Commission and others to strictly prosecute all crimes involving injuries to doctors; and jointly with the General Administration of Customs, etc. Standardize and punish crimes that hinder frontier health and quarantine, and strictly prevent overseas imported risks of the epidemic.
Data map: Supreme People's Procuratorate.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Huisi
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate held an online interview on the 2nd. Questions at the scene said that after the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, cases that hindered the prevention and control of the epidemic have attracted social attention. What is the overall situation of the procuratorial organs handling such cases?
Especially in the early stage, there was controversy over the application of crimes, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate also released multiple batches of typical epidemic-related cases in a timely manner. How can procuratorial organs ensure the accurate application of related crimes and avoid “one size fits all”?
Miao Shengming said that formulating and improving systems and standards will lay a solid foundation for the prevention and control of the epidemic in accordance with the law.
In order to meet the needs of handling cases, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued special case handling regulations on January 30, 2020.
After that, it issued guidance together with relevant political and legal departments to punish crimes that endanger the epidemic in accordance with the law; make arrangements with the National Health Commission to prosecute all crimes of injury to doctors and disturb doctors strictly in accordance with the law; and the General Administration of Customs to regulate and punish national borders Health and quarantine crimes, strictly prevent the risk of imported epidemics abroad; jointly issue guidance with relevant leading agencies and political and legal departments to help resume work and production; jointly issue two batches of answers in the form of joint answers to reporters’ questions by the heads of the "two highs" research office, as Promote the normalization of epidemic prevention and control and provide judicial guarantee for economic and social development.
Miao Shengming introduced that he actively fulfilled his leading responsibilities and worked hard to advance the quarantine war on the track of the rule of law.
Accurately grasp the laws and policies, and strive to prevent breakthroughs in the law of "seriously", "strictly" and "fastly"; clearly require prosecutors at all levels to ensure treatment first when handling cases where the suspect is a confirmed or suspected patient. Take detention and compulsory measures, and after the treatment is over, properly handle the case in accordance with the law and reflect humanitarian care; actively promote the establishment of a coordinated case handling and rapid response mechanism with public security organs and people’s courts to form a joint force in combating.
In particular, we will make full use of the mechanism of intervention in investigation to guide evidence collection to help public security organs improve the quality and effectiveness of evidence collection and accurately grasp the characterization of cases.
In 2020, a total of more than 6,600 cases will be involved in investigations and guidance; the criminal policy of combining leniency and strictness will be fully implemented, and more than 1,500 people will not be arrested or prosecuted in accordance with the law.
Miao Shengming pointed out that the guidance, education, warning, and leading role of typical cases should be fully utilized.
Pay attention to the interpretation of the law by case. During the epidemic prevention and control period in 2020, we will continuously publish 10 batches of 55 typical criminal cases involving epidemic prevention and control at a high frequency every week; especially to break the past practice of only issuing effective judgments In order to reflect the special needs of “prevention and control according to law” during the epidemic period, we chose to publish typical cases in progress in a timely manner, which had an immediate effect; successively published a series of interpretive articles on the rule of law behind the typical cases, and comprehensively and in-depth explained the purpose of case selection, Value, and actively promote the unification of understanding and standards in the application of laws and policy grasp by political and legal agencies.
By publishing typical cases, it not only guides local procuratorial organs to handle cases correctly, but also forms a deterrent to potential crimes. At the same time, they guide the people to raise awareness, vigilance, and prevention of epidemic-related crimes, and guide the entire society to prevent and fight epidemics in accordance with the law.