Editor's note: How to make prosecutorial recommendations that do not have rigid requirements become rigid? All along, local procuratorates have been actively exploring ways to promote the implementation of prosecutorial recommendations through strengthening the standardization of prosecutorial recommendations, seeking the support and cooperation of the Party Committee, the People's Congress and the government, and public delivery and public announcement. Recently, our reporter went to various places to dig deep into a number of "samples" with solid measures and obvious results, in order to provide reference and inspiration for Chinese procuratorates to promote this work.

Procuratorial recommendations have great potential in comprehensively strengthening legal supervision.

Under the new situation, how to better improve the working mechanism of prosecutorial recommendations and give full play to its supervisory effectiveness is an important topic that the procuratorate must complete in the new era.

Chen Yong, Chief Prosecutor of the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate, said: "Prosecutorial suggestions play an important role in promoting the rule of law in social governance, promoting administration according to law, safeguarding national interests and social welfare. Shandong procuratorial organs should follow the general requirements of the procuratorial work in the new era of "being politically conscious, taking the overall situation into consideration, seeking development, and emphasizing self-reliance", work hard on standardization, spend energy on mechanisms, and make articles on innovation to promote the continuous improvement of the quality and efficiency of procuratorial suggestion supervision." To this end, Shandong procuratorial organs have innovatively promoted the standardization of procuratorial suggestions, taking case-based handling as the main line, combining rigidity and flexibility to shape supervision resilience, and pursuing win-win, multi-win and win-win situations with the people as the center, and explored a path for the standardization of procuratorial suggestions.

Case-based handling: changing "one-shot" to precise delivery and standardized operation

"Please deal with the procuratorial suggestion within two months of receiving it, and reply to this court in writing with the results of the handling." On April 19 this year, in the solemn and solemn procuratorial suggestion work room of Ningyang County Procuratorate, Wang Yongjian, the deputy chief procurator of the court, publicly announced and delivered the procuratorial suggestion, and explained the relevant evidence involved in the procuratorial suggestion through multimedia demonstration. Sitting in the recommended seats were Lv Hongsheng, director of the Ningyang County Land and Resources Bureau, Li Zhaoxin, deputy director, and An Xuegong, director of the law enforcement brigade office. Some deputies to the National People's Congress, special prosecutors, and the director of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Ningyang County People's Congress Standing Committee attended the public delivery ceremony as third-party representatives.

At the beginning of this year, Cui Keguo from Dongcui Village, Dongzhuang Town, Ningyang County, illegally mined sandstone in basic farmland without the permission of the land department, destroying a large area of farmland. After the case was closed as a criminal case, the Ningyang County Land and Resources Bureau did not impose administrative penalties such as orders to correct and fines, and the damaged land was not restored. For this reason, the Ningyang County Procuratorate issued a procuratorial suggestion to the County Land and Resources Bureau, proposing a deadline for reclamation and a major law enforcement inspection of illegal and criminal acts that damage land.

"The procuratorial suggestion is legal and accurate, and it points out the loopholes in our work. In the next step, we must implement rectification and focus on establishing and improving a long-term mechanism for land law enforcement and supervision." Lv Hongsheng said on the spot that the law enforcement checkpoint should be moved forward.

"In the past, procuratorial recommendations were sent out and then forgotten, and the recommended units also "returned and forgotten." Shang Xiaobing, the chief procurator of Ningyang County Procuratorate, told reporters that the "ritualization" of public delivery is aimed at improving the standardization, rationality and effectiveness of procuratorial recommendations. By involving deputies to the National People's Congress, members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the general public, it can expand the scope of knowledge of procuratorial recommendations. The recommended units have increased their attention by "blushing" and "sweating", and at the same time forced the procuratorate to improve the quality of procuratorial recommendations.

"Send and forget" is due to some inherent deficiencies of procuratorial recommendations. "At present, the laws and regulations related to procuratorial recommendations only have principled provisions, lacking specific rules and institutional norms. Most procuratorial recommendations are issued by various business departments on their own, with different formats and less follow-up on implementation. Sometimes, different departments even send different procuratorial recommendations to the same unit on the same case. Our goal of comprehensively standardizing the work of procuratorial recommendations is to make up for and solve the inherent deficiencies of procuratorial recommendations." Li Zheng, director of the Legal Policy Research Office of Shandong Provincial Procuratorate, introduced.

With a problem-oriented approach, the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate has set up a special working group led by Chief Prosecutor Chen Yong, and has decided to carry out pilot projects in two municipal procuratorates in Qingdao and Dongying and five county-level procuratorates in Zhoucun District, Zibo City, and Ningyang County. Each pilot court has comprehensively standardized the production of procuratorial recommendation documents, venue ceremonies, effect evaluation, and supervision and management.

The general practice of the pilot courts is that the procuratorial recommendations are fully checked by the Legal Policy Research Office, and the quality and effectiveness of supervision are fully evaluated, and the issuance of documents uses unified identification, numbers, and formats. At the same time, case-based handling is carried out to achieve process-based handling of clue management, preliminary verification and certification, case filing and investigation, investigation and verification, issuance of recommendations, and follow-up supervision. The reporter also learned that the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate has also developed an information platform for procuratorial recommendations to achieve real-time automatic capture of clues, information-based circulation of handling links, and real-time grasp of the adoption and implementation of the recommended units. In each pilot court, a special procuratorial suggestion studio has also been set up. Through multimedia public demonstration, public announcement and public delivery, prosecutors, recommended units, and third-party personnel such as NPC deputies, CPPCC members, and people's supervisors participate in the whole process. Rigid multi-dimensional supervision: changing "going through the motions" to defendants for non-implementation and accountability for non-rectification As an important means for the procuratorial organs to exercise their legal supervision powers, relevant laws and judicial interpretations do not clearly define the positioning of procuratorial suggestions, nor do they give procuratorial suggestions a mandatory implementation mechanism. Some recommended units believe that procuratorial suggestions can be changed or not. Zhang Zhenzhong, deputy procurator-general of the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate, believes that this has affected the full play of the effectiveness of procuratorial suggestions in practice. How to enhance the rigidity of procuratorial suggestions? Shandong procuratorial organs have been exploring. Due to failure to implement procuratorial suggestions, the Lijin County Environmental Protection Bureau became a defendant on March 30 this year.

In August 2017, the Lijin County Procuratorate discovered while performing its duties that there were many oil residues and black wastes in an abandoned cotton processing factory in Badong Village, Yanwo Town, the county, as well as two jars filled with black liquid, which gave off a pungent and unpleasant odor. Upon investigation, these were all hazardous wastes. Although the Lijin County Environmental Protection Bureau has transferred the relevant responsible persons suspected of polluting the environment to the public security organs for handling, the hazardous wastes have never been disposed of. Therefore, the Lijin County Procuratorate issued a procuratorial suggestion to the Environmental Protection Bureau, urging it to take timely disposal measures for hazardous wastes to avoid causing greater pollution.

In January this year, the Lijin County Environmental Protection Bureau replied that it had contacted the hazardous waste treatment unit for proper disposal. However, the prosecutor found during on-site verification that no treatment had been done on the hazardous wastes in the factory.

Therefore, the Lijin County Procuratorate filed an administrative public interest lawsuit with the court.

In addition to filing lawsuits, the pilot courts also strengthened cooperation with the National People's Congress and the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Department. By reporting to the local Standing Committee of the People's Congress to issue relevant resolutions to strengthen the work of procuratorial recommendations, issuing implementation opinions with the local Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision to urge the implementation of procuratorial recommendations and strengthen cooperation and coordination, and including the implementation of procuratorial recommendations in the assessment of party and government or rule of law work, the rigidity of procuratorial recommendations was further enhanced and a joint supervision force was formed.

In March this year, the Standing Committee of the Dongying Municipal People's Congress passed the "Resolution on Strengthening the Work of Procuratorial Recommendations", which clearly established a system for filing procuratorial recommendations and written replies of the recommended units with the Standing Committee of the People's Congress at the same level, and stipulated that if the recommended units do not adopt the procuratorial recommendations without legitimate reasons, especially major issues related to the national economy and people's livelihood and strongly reflected by the masses, they should promptly request the Standing Committee of the People's Congress at the same level to initiate the supervision procedure.

Not only that, the Dongying Municipal Procuratorate has also established a dynamic linkage mechanism with the city's Supervision Committee to strengthen supervision and implementation through the transfer and feedback of case clues, joint supervision and inspection, information resource sharing, case notification, and case file review.

Zheng Jianjun, director of the Standing Committee of the Dongying Municipal People's Congress, believes that "procuratorial suggestions are an effective way to promote the construction of a rule of law society. The Municipal People's Congress and its Standing Committee should support the procuratorate in carrying out procuratorial suggestions in accordance with the law through supervision, urge relevant units to administer in accordance with the law, strictly regulate civilized law enforcement, and consciously accept procuratorial supervision."

People-centered: Change game to win-win, multi-win and win-win

"The smell was too pungent before, and you had to pinch your nose when passing by here. Now it's full of green, and it's easy to breathe." Ma Benteng, a farmer in Lanshan District, Rizhao City, told reporters that he would never dream that the garbage mountain that had been piled up for 7 years would now become 48 acres of lush black pine forest.

In March 2017, the Lanshan District Procuratorate found that a large amount of sediment waste from sewage treatment plants and waste plastic bags, wire mesh and other garbage were piled up west of Provincial Highway 222 and north of Dawangshan Road. The scene was in a mess and exuded a foul smell, which seriously affected the lives of the surrounding villagers and the villagers complained.

After the Lanshan District Procuratorate issued the procuratorial suggestion, the District Housing and Urban-Rural Planning and Construction Bureau immediately inspected the garbage dump site and formulated a garbage disposal plan. Soon, all the garbage in the area was disposed of and backfilled, and more than 13,000 black pine trees were planted. The story of "the garbage mountain turned into a black pine forest" became a legend in the local area.

Gao Yueqing, chief prosecutor of Lanshan District Procuratorate, told reporters: "Legal supervision is not to show who is right and who is wrong, nor is it a game where you win and I lose. Its essence is to solve problems and make up for shortcomings through legal supervision, jointly maintain social fairness and justice and public interests, and better implement the people-centered development philosophy."

He told reporters this story:

Last October, the Lanshan District Procuratorate received a letter of thanks: "With the great help of your court, our bureau has successively carried out special law enforcement actions such as magnetic separation of steel slag, charcoal processing, plastic particles and stone processing, and completely solved a number of hot and difficult problems that the masses strongly reflected. In the central environmental protection inspection in August, our district, as a steel and chemical industry cluster in Rizhao City, had a petition volume of less than one-tenth of the city's total, and the environmental air quality ranked second in the city. All of this is inseparable from your support and supervision." The Lanshan District Environmental Protection Branch, which had once been the defendant in the public interest litigation, sent a special letter of thanks.

"While safeguarding national interests and social public interests, the procuratorate also allows the supervised units to benefit from legal supervision, achieving the good results of "handling one case, governing one area, and benefiting one party", and realizing the goal of win-win, multi-win and win-win." Liu Xinhua, a prosecutor of the Civil Affairs Section of Lanshan District Procuratorate who has been engaged in civil affairs for 10 years, is deeply touched by this.

Since the pilot, various places in Shandong have taken appropriate measures to promote grassroots initiatives, improve the quality of procuratorial recommendations, and enhance the authority of procuratorial supervision. According to statistics, the pilot procuratorates have issued a total of 120 procuratorial recommendations in accordance with the case-based handling model, with a response rate of 100% and an adoption rate of 99.1%, which effectively demonstrates the quality and effectiveness of the legal supervision of the procuratorial organs.

"Through half a year of pilot work, the standardization of procuratorial recommendations has achieved initial results. In the next step, Shandong procuratorial organs will use standardization to promote rigidity and use rigidity to win authority, promote the in-depth development of the standardization of procuratorial recommendations, turn the pilot experience into provincial actions, and use the Shandong effect to form a Shandong brand." Chen Yong pointed out the future work direction.

Plastic Industry Video