Supervisory bodies to boost rule of law
The fact that Yang Xiaodu, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and minister of supervision, said on Monday that the planned national supervisory commission (NSC) will not be a powerful watchdog without restraints confirms the new supervisory body will be under the leadership of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and responsible to and supervised by the National People’s Congress now that it has been proposed to be written into the Constitution.
In fact, legislation of the national supervision law and the due election of the chief of the NSC at the ongoing first session of the 13th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, will weave a broad supervisory network covering all public power holders and add weight to the anti-corruption campaign. The process which is already underway will lead China into a new era where the anti-graft drive will be fully based on law.
Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in late 2012, the efforts to promote stricter selfgovernance, use the intra-Party political ecology to the optimum level and improve the self-purification capability have become a focus of the Party’s work. Tighter measures and improved cohesion have helped the Party to make unprecedented achievements in the fight against corruption.
The 19th Party Congress in October 2017 decided to deepen the supervisory system reform and set up supervisory commissions at the provincial, city and county levels. Based on the road map set by the CPC Central Committee, supervisory commissions at various levels have already been established nationwide.
Against the backdrop of effective Party self-governance along with the tough challenges lying ahead, deepening the supervisory system reform and establishing the supervisory commissions nationwide have become a priority for further strengthening Party self-governance and taking the anti-graft campaign to a new historical starting point. The reason: stricter intra-Party supervision and people’s supervision are desperately needed to ensure, in the long term, that officials are unable or don’t want to indulge in corruption. New commission can use resources more efficiently
Compared with intra-Party supervision, which has been strengthened to an unprecedented degree at all levels over the past five years, self-supervision on a nationwide level faces obstacles such as a narrow scope of supervision, decentralized supervisory agencies and insufficient means of supervision, which call for the establishment of a better supervisory system. This will strengthen both the Party’s self-supervision and supervision over the State, and meet all the requirements of intra-Party supervision and people’s supervision.
By deepening the supervisory system reform, the authorities aim to tighten supervision of both Party discipline committees and the State supervisory apparatus, in order to build an effective problem-finding and errorcorrecting mechanism, ensure Party and State supervision are extended to all staff in the public sector, and make the supervision mechanisms more institutionalized and standardized so that power can be put in the cage of rules.
Thanks to its long-term explorations and practices, the CPC has established a set of clear and functioning intra-Party supervision systems, offering tangible rules and regulations for the Party’s self-management and selfgovernance. When it comes to China’s extant supervisory system, within the government there exist administrative supervision and audit systems, apart from supervision of the people’s congresses, judicial organs and the public. Even within the procuratorates, there are special departments entrusted to fight corruption, breach of duty and duty-related crimes.
However, such anti-corruption resources are dispersed across many departments and thus cannot fully play their due roles.
The establishment of the NSC will integrate various kinds of resources, and construct a centralized, unified, authoritative and efficient anti-corruption law enforcement system, which will help form a strict and law-based supervisory system and promote the modernization of China’s governance system and governance capability.
The deepening of the supervisory system reform, aimed at setting up centralized and unified national supervisory machineries will considerably help restrain the use (and thus minimize the abuse) of power, and enhance China’s capability to tackle disruptive forces against the anti-corruption campaign.
The transformation of administrative supervision and procuratorial investigation powers into national supervision power will break the barrier between administrative and procuratorial departments, and organically combine the investigations against administrative law violation and duty-related crimes. Supervising the powers of supervisory bodies
As special organs to fight corruption, the supervisory commissions will be elected by the corresponding people’s congresses and enjoy the same legal status as the corresponding level of governments, procuratorates and courts. Supervisory power will become a new type of law enforcement mechanism that enjoyed the same legal status as the executives and judicial bodies. The supervisory commissions will also have the power to supervise personnel, investigate suspects and punish offenders.
Supervision function is preventing (and fighting) corruption. Supervisory commissions will mainly supervise those who wield public power, and determine whether those personnel are abiding by the Constitution, and other laws and regulations, and whether they are fulfilling the duties their positions demand. This type of supervision mainly includes conversations, special inspections, special treatment, inquiries, clues-based investigations, verification via spot checks, and assessing whether the holders of public power have adhered to clean and honest governance.
Moreover, those under investigation can be confined to a designated place for further interrogation in accordance with the law if factual evidence shows they have violated laws or committed crimes. But such detentions should be subject to strict procedures and specific time limit, and the detainees should be guaranteed their basic rights to food, rest and medical services. And for those suspects who should be prevented from leaving the country, a set of strict approval procedures are needed.
The supervisory commissions, based on China’s laws and regulations, can also mete out punishments to those found to have violated the law, including disciplinary punishments such as warning, demerit or serious demerit, demotion, suspension or sacking, and transfer the suspected personnel to judicial authorities to face criminal trial.
Supervision, investigation and punishment will enhance the supervisory commissions’ capability to prevent corruption and make the process of bringing the corrupt personnel to account more efficient.
Power will corrupt and absolute power will corrupt absolutely if power is not effectively restrained. Given that corrupt supervisors usually cause more serious damage to the system than ordinary officials — and to ensure fair and efficient operation of supervisory personnel — an effective supervision and restraint mechanism needs to be established against the abuse of supervisory power.
Party committees at various levels will oversee the work of the supervisory commissions at the corresponding levels. And such supervision should be aimed at determining whether the supervisors are fulfilling their duties and abiding by the law to a build a team of supervision personnel who are honest and upright, dedicated to their jobs, and can enforce the law in an impartial manner and be supervised by the people.
Being supervised by the people’s congresses is a statutory obligation of the corresponding level of supervisory commissions. The standing committees of people’s congresses at various levels can review the special reports of the corresponding level of supervisory commissions and scrutinize their law enforcement performance.
Besides, procuratorial and judicial organs can cooperate and exercise mutual restraint with the supervisory commissions. For example, a procuratorial organ can return a case that is confirmed by a supervisory commission as a duty-related crime to the commission for supplementary investigation and/or decide not to file a lawsuit with the judicial organ if the case lacks clear facts or sufficient evidence.
An accountability mechanism for supervision personnel will also be established to evaluate whether their supervision work has been done in accordance with State laws and regulations.
Therefore, the supervisory system reform and the establishment of the NSC, which are important steps toward advancing the rule of law, will greatly help to achieve victory against corruption through zero-tolerance and an all-inclusive anticorruption campaign.