Pilot program given oversight

offered more flexibility in handing down sentences.

At a news conference on Thursday, Wang Aili, director of the Criminal Law Office with the NPC Standing Committee’s Legal Affairs Commission, said detailed measures were issued late last year jointly by the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate to prevent possible judicial corruption brought by the new policy.

“Judges and procurators would bear administrative or criminal liabilities if they’re found with any power abuse in the pilot program,” he said.

Wang said the rules also stipulate how to improve supervision and how to regulate legal procedures while handling such cases, but he did not give details.

“The top judicial authorities have also been required to make a midterm report of the two-year pilot program to the NPC this year,” he said.

Under the pilot program, for example, courts are allowed to announce judgments directly, even without court investigation and debate, if criminal defendants plead guilty and face sentences of three years or less in prison.

“The move is to highlight the principle that tempers justice with mercy, as well as to optimize legal resources by accelerating the process in handling cases with clear facts,” Wang added.

Also at Thursday’s news conference, Xu Anbiao, deputy director of the NPC Standing Committee’s Legal Affairs Commission, said the top legislature this year will push forward anti-corruption legislation and improve tax-related laws.

A major legislative task will be amending the Administrative Supervision Law into a more powerful national supervision law, which is expected to be submitted to the NPC for reading in March 2018, he said.