Decision of the Standing Committee of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on Strengthening the Procuratorate's Work on Legal Supervision in the New Era

(Adopted at the 40th Session of the Standing Committee of the 15th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on May 24, 2022；amended according to the Decision on Amending Five Local Rules Including the Provisions of the Standing Committee of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on the Work of District, County, Town and Township People's Congresses and Repealing the Several Provisions of Shanghai Municipality on Prevention of Duty Crimes adopted at the 9th Session of the Standing Committee of the 16th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on December 28, 2023；amended according to the Decision on Amending Four Local Rules Including the Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests adopted at the 16th Session of the Standing Committee of the 16th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on September 27, 2024)

To further strengthen the procuratorate's work on legal supervision, safeguard and support the procuratorate's performance of its legal supervision function according to law, and improve the quality and effectiveness of the work on legal supervision, this Decision is made as follows according to the Constitution and legal provisions and in the light of this Municipality’s actual circumstances:

I. The procuratorate in Shanghai shall follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, implement Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, unswervingly uphold the Party's absolute leadership in procuratorial work, stick to the role of the procuratorate as state legal supervisory authorities as provided in the Constitution, proactively accept the supervision of the people's congresses and their standing committees, and perform their procuratorial functions in criminal, civil, administrative and public-interest litigation; they shall ensure the comprehensive, coordinated and full development of all procuratorial work, promote the interconnection and coordination between legal supervision and other kinds of supervision, and strive to improve legal supervision to provide legal guarantee for establishing Shanghai as a modern socialist metropolis with international significance.

II. The procuratorate shall adopt a holistic approach to national security, proactively devote itself to building a high-level "Peaceful Shanghai", and maintain the security and stability of Shanghai; take the implementation of national strategies as the guidance to actively serve and guarantee high-quality economic and social development; uphold the people-centered approach to development to strengthen judicial guarantee for people's livelihood; continue to incorporate the socialist core values into legal supervision and guide the public to enhance their awareness of the rule of law and to improve the modernization of this Municipality’s governance system and capacity.

III. The procuratorate shall uphold an objective and impartial standing, implement a criminal policy that combines severe punishment and leniency, promptly and effectively perform the duties of investigation, arrest review, prosecution review, and initiation of prosecution, and punish all types of crimes in accordance with the law.

The procuratorate shall correct illegal acts such as failure to file cases and illegal filing of cases; improve the mechanism for supervising the public security department that fails to investigate a case after it is filed, withdraws a case without investigation, or fails to settle a case after a long investigation, and the procuratorate shall carry out the legality review of interrogation before closing the investigation of an important case; it shall regulate the application of non-custodial coercive measures, improve the supervision over coercive measures such as criminal detention and residential surveillance, take the measures of arrest and detention strictly according to law, and strengthen the necessity review of detention after arrest.

The procuratorate shall integrate the use of protest, opinions on corrections, procuratorial suggestions and other supervisory means to correct problems such as wrong verdicts, apparently inappropriate sentences, and serious violations of the court procedures.

The procuratorate shall improve the working mechanism for sending permanent and circuit procuratorial inspection teams to detention facilities to enhance the supervision over the delivery of criminal sentences, execution of property sentences and execution of involuntary medical treatment, and to improve the synchronous supervision over the change of the sentences; it shall strengthen the supervision over excessive detention and abnormal death of detainees; advance the circuit procuratorial supervision over community corrections to improve the supervision over such criminal sentence executions as public surveillance, imprisonment with a suspension of execution, release on parole, or the decision of temporary service of the sentence outside prison.

IV. The procuratorate shall enhance the supervision over outstanding problems in civil litigation that damage national interests or public interests, violate statutory procedures or make apparently unfair sentences, and shall improve the quality and efficacy of similar case supervision; it may support litigation against acts that damage national, collective or personal civil rights and interests according to law; it shall correct, according to law, passive, selective and excessive law enforcement; strengthen the supervision over false litigation, and improve the joint-action mechanism for preventing, spotting and investigating false litigations in collaboration with the judiciary, the public security department and the judicial administration.

V. The procuratorate shall perform its duties in supervising administrative litigations according to law, and promote law-based adjudication by the judiciary and legal performance of administrative duties by the administrative department to protect the lawful rights and interests of the administrative counterparts; when finding administrative departments' illegal performance or non-performance of their duties and powers during its legal supervision, it shall urge them to make corrections according to law, when conducting legal supervision, it shall collaborate with other relevant departments to advance substantive resolution of administrative disputes; it shall also establish and improve the coordination mechanism for procuratorial supervision over administration and promote effective connectivity between procuratorial legal supervision and intra-governmental multi-level supervision in key areas.

VI. The procuratorate shall follow the principle of proactive, reliable and prudent supervision, make explorations according to law to expand the scope of public-interest litigation, collaborate with relevant departments to establish a mechanism for procuratorial intervention in investigating major public events, improve the pre-litigation consultation procedures for public interest litigation, and explore a system of imposing punitive compensations in civil public interest litigation. The procuratorates at all levels shall establish separate bank accounts for public interest litigation in which fees and compensations for restoring public interest are deposited and used for public welfare protection according to law.

VII. The procuratorate shall, jointly with the financial regulation department, the judiciary and the public security department, establish and improve working mechanisms on financial security data research, risk alert, and consultations for case investigation, and integrate punishing financial crimes with improving financial regulation so as to more effectively prevent and resolve financial risks.

The procuratorate shall promote centralized and unified performance of duties when supervising criminal, civil, administrative, public-interest litigations in intellectual property cases, and advance the construction of procuratorial intellectual property protection centers in competitive industry clusters, in order to enhance integrated protection of intellectual property and support innovation-driven development.

VIII. The procuratorate shall deal with criminal, civil, administrative, and public-interest litigation in minor-related cases in a unified and centralized manner, severely punish the crimes that harm minors according to law, improve the integrated mechanism for protecting and assisting juvenile victims, and legally punish and accurately help and educate the minors who commit crimes or wrong-doing; it shall also supervise relevant departments in implementing the special education and other intervention and corrective measures for the minors who commit serious wrong-doing, carry out the system of separate custody, management and education for the minors who are detained or imprisoned, and strengthen the supervision over minor's guardianship, urge relevant departments to perform their duties, and enhance comprehensive management for minors, so as to promote a coordinated protection network consisting of the family, school, society, Internet, government and judiciary.

IX. The procuratorate shall equally protect the legitimate rights and interests of various enterprises, promote enterprises’ legal operations and improve the law-based business environment.

X. The procuratorate shall, in the light of the actual situation, make full use of the existing legal system and state policies to enhance integrated reforms, and establish and improve a legal supervision guarantee system that supports and adapts to the implementation of national strategies.

This Municipality shall support the procuratorate of Pudong New Area to carry out pilot programs in optimizing the law-based business environment, securing financial innovation, strengthening intellectual property protection, and expanding the scope of public interest litigation.

The procuratorates of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and its Lin-gang Special Area and Hongqiao International Open Hub shall enhance collaboration and coordination with relevant departments for better efficiency and efficacy of legal supervision.

XI. The procuratorate shall strengthen the legal guarantee for the capability of responding to natural disasters, accidents, public health incidents, social security events and other emergencies, punish the crimes of interfering in emergency responses, driving up prices, spreading rumors, making and selling fake commodities, negligence and dereliction of duty, and embezzlement and misappropriation, supervise the administrative departments in legally and reasonably adopting emergency measures including administrative coercive measures, expropriation and requisition, and administrative punishments, enhance protection of public interest in food and drug safety, and improve the public security administration in emergencies.

XII. The relevant organizations and individuals shall cooperate when the procuratorate needs, according to law, to collect evidence from reading dossiers or other documents, search data and other information, and inquire the parties to the case, parties outside the case and other relevant persons.

When the procuratorate puts forward opinions on corrections, or procuratorial suggestions, the relevant organizations shall make timely corrections and replies; if they disagree, they may make written explanations or propose a reconsideration within the prescribed time limit. If the procuratorate makes supervisory suggestions to the relevant departments in charge, such departments shall notify the procuratorate in a timely manner of the results or situation of their handling.

In the case of refusal to assist in the investigation or accept supervision without a justified reason, the procuratorate may suggest that the supervision commission or its higher-level department in charge to deal with the refusal according to laws, rules and regulations.

XIII. The supervision commission shall collaborate with the procuratorate in improving the mechanism for prior intervention in criminal investigation, rejection and request for additional investigation, or its own investigation, and when investigating the work-related crimes of the judicial staff, it shall strengthen coordination with the procuratorate in connectivity, transfer of clues, and collaborative case handling.

The judiciary shall, jointly with the procuratorate, improve the mechanism of reading dossiers for civil and administrative litigations; give explanations and basis for a plea leniency case in which the procuratorial suggestion on sentencing is not accepted; and shall notify the chief procurator at the same level to be present at the judicial committee's meeting in the case the defendant may be acquitted or sentenced to death after debate, in the case the procuratorate makes protests, or in other legal-supervision-related important cases or topics with great social significance or major disagreement.

The public security department shall, jointly with the procuratorate, guarantee the normal operation of the mechanism for investigation supervision and cooperation, facilitate online transfers and inquiries of case data and information, and improve the mechanism for soliciting procuratorial suggestions in major and difficult cases.

The judicial administration shall strengthen litigation rights protection jointly with the procuratorate, and actively coordinate the public legal resources of lawyers, notaries, forensic authentication experts and people’s mediators to provide support for procuratorial supervision.

This Municipality shall incorporate the response to the opinions on procuratorial legal supervision into the law-based administration assessment. The municipal and district people's governments and their relevant departments shall better guarantee funds and facilities for the performance of procuratorial duties.

XIV. This Municipality shall promote the two-way connection between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice, and establish a system for the connection between procuratorial supervision and administrative law enforcement, improve the practices of law enforcement information sharing, case briefing and case transfer, establish a joint conference system for connecting administrative law enforcement and criminal justice, improve the case consultation system, and achieve connection between administrative penalty and criminal punishment. If the judiciary and the administrative law enforcement department transfer a criminal case to the public security department, they shall notify the procuratorate at the same level. The procuratorate shall supervise according to law the transfer of the criminal case from the administrative law enforcement department and the corresponding response of the public security department.

XV. This Municipality shall optimize and integrate various kinds of information, data and Internet platforms in the field of law-based governance, take advantage of the municipal big data platform, highlight the responsibility for data sharing, refine the scope of the data access right, and promote the interconnection and sharing of information and data in law-based governance; it shall encourage the research and application of an intelligent case-handling system and establish a full range of online services for the procuratorate, the judiciary, the public security department and the judicial administration, deepen the coordination of law enforcement and justice administration, and enhance technology-based supervision for the procuratorate.

XVI. The procuratorate shall establish a system of issuing annual reports and special reports to conduct regular analysis of the legal supervision work; establish and improve the working mechanism of reference cases and typical cases to improve the interpretation of laws through cases, strengthen legal publicity and enhance the public awareness of law; and for the problems found in its performance of the legal supervision duty, make timely procuratorial suggestions about institutional improvement, stronger supervision and control, stopping up of loopholes, risk prevention, and performance of duties in order to help establish a long-term mechanism for social governance.

XVII. The procuratorate shall deepen the cooperation in supervision among the Yangtze River Delta region, actively promote a set of standards for implementing regional judicial policies, boost sharing and integration of regional procuratorial data and service platforms, and push forward regional talent exchange and joint training programs to better guarantee regional legal supervision.

XVIII. This Municipality shall deepen the reform of appropriate separation of the jurisdictions of courts from the administrative districts, improve the procuratorial organization system according to law, and refine the supervision mechanism for the adjudication of specialized courts.

The procuratorate shall make more efforts to build procuratorate talents training bases, and improve the joint training scheme in collaboration with law schools and colleges for better performance of the procuratorial team, and accomplishment of a regular, specialized and professional team with a firm standing on self-reform.

This Municipality shall improve the mechanism for guaranteeing the rights and interests of procurators, and provide remedy for the harm caused in performance of procuratorial duties. Any falsified reporting against the procurator shall be handled with timely responses, and the organizations or individuals making the falsified reporting shall be held accountable according to law.

XIX. The procuratorate shall establish and improve the internal supervision mechanism, strengthen the higher-level procuratorate's leadership and supervision over the lower-level procuratorate, and enhance the management of cases and internal supervision affairs; increase transparency of procuratorial work, put into practice public hearings and public announcement of procuratorial decisions, bring the role of people's supervisors into play, expand the channels for public participation in and supervision over justice, and voluntarily accept social supervision.

XX. The municipal and district people's congresses and their standing committees shall, through listening to and deliberating on procuratorial work reports and special reports, and carrying out inspections of law implementation, supervise and support the procuratorate to perform its duties according to law; enhance the supervision over how the relevant departments accept and cooperate in the supervision of the procuratorate; and improve the mechanism of connecting the standing committee's supervision according to law with procuratorial legal supervision with regard to the complaints through letters and visits about legal disputes or litigations so as to better perform the functions of procuratorial supervision.

XXI. This Decision shall be effective as of June 1, 2022. The Resolution of the Standing Committee of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on Strengthening the Procuratorate's Work on Legal Supervision adopted at the 14th Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on October 22, 2009 shall be repealed simultaneously.