New organ to cover all officials, enjoy same legal standing as gov't
China's top legislature on Sunday established a new, powerful disciplinary organ in renewed efforts to fight corruption.
The National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee approved the pilot reform program to create a supervision system that will be more independent and authoritative.
The Supervision Committee will integrate the power and duty of two government departments - the supervision department and the corruption prevention department - with part of the procuratorate for handling bribery and dereliction of duty cases or prevention of duty-related crimes, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The new committee will be under supervision of the local people's congresses, the legislature, which will also be in charge of staffing the committee. Observers said this means China's legislature will for the first time have disciplinary power.
According to the pilot program, the new supervision committees will be formed in Beijing and the provinces of Shanxi and Zhejiang.
"A major point of this reform is that the supervision committee will now have the power to investigate not only public servants from the administrative branch, but also the courts, prosecutors offices, legislative bodies, and State-owned enterprises," Jiang Ming'an, a law professor from Peking University, told the Global Times on Monday. "With expanded power, the status of supervision bodies will also rise in the political hierarchy," he said.
Li Yongzhong, former deputy head of the Chinese Discipline Inspection Institute, said the new committees will have the same legal standing as the government.
"This was an unprecedented move. It implies that supervision authorities will no longer be affiliated with the government, bringing to an end a long history of internal supervision," Li told the Global Times on Monday.
The importance of the reform is also reflected in a circular released by the top legislature, which called the reform "a major political institutional reform that concerns the overall situation," a term rarely used in official documents.
All public servants who exercise public power will be supervised by the new committee, according to the decision. The committee is given the power to supervise, investigate and hand out punishments.
The committees will be overseen by their local legislative bodies and will supervise performance of duty, integrity and the ethical conduct of public servants. It will investigate and punish corruption and other job-related offenses, and will transfer cases involving suspected criminal offenses to prosecutors.
Separate investigations
Before the establishment of the committee, it was the Discipline Inspection Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that put all Party members and government officials in check.
According to Jiang, the supervision committees will differ from the Party's discipline inspection commission in that the new committees will focus on breaches of law whereas the inspection commissions will focus on the enforcement of Party discipline.
"A problem that has long haunted our system is that the anti-corruption organs are too dispersed. There have been situations where the Party disciplinary watchdog and the procuratorates were carrying out redundant investigations, especially over corrupt senior officials, which was why the prosecution processes took months or even years," Jiang said. "A unified mechanism helps make better use of State resources."
Li also told the Global Times that the supervision system reform could serve as a breakthrough that leads to other reforms, including optimizing China's power structure.
The NPC decision on Sunday to carry out pilot programs in Beijing, Zhejiang and Shanxi came a month after Wang Qishan, chief of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission of the CPC inspected local discipline organs in Beijing, Shanxi and Zhejiang.
During the inspections Wang asked Party authorities of the three regions to implement the reform according to local situations, and to provide practical experience for a national roll-out, Xinhua reported.
