VZCZCXRO4800
OO RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHBJ #1700/01 0731012
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 141012Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5636
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 001700 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
JUSTICE FOR CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN, 
OPDAT, AND KYLE LATIMER, OIA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM ECON KJUS KIPR CH
SUBJECT: COURT AND PROCURACY REPORTS STRESS ANTI- 
CORRUPTION, REVIEW OF DEATH PENALTY CASES 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. (SBU) During his March 13 presentation of the 
Supreme People's Court Work Report at China's annual 
legislative session, Court President Xiao Yang 
discussed death penalty reforms and made repeated 
reference to the need for supervision of the 
judiciary.  Procurator-General Jia Chunwang 
highlighted anti-corruption efforts in his 
presentation on the work of the Supreme People's 
Procuratorate at the same session and said there is a 
shortage of prosecutors for handling the now-required 
second-instance higher court trials for death penalty 
cases.  While Jia referred to corruption prosecutions 
at the State Food and Drug Administration, he did not 
mention the scandal that took down Shanghai leader 
Chen Liangyu, as the case has not yet moved to 
prosecution.  Comment: Aside from discussion of death 
penalty review procedures, this year's judicial 
reports reiterated well-worn promises of coming 
improvements and are unlikely to assuage rising public 
concerns over corruption and rights protection.  End 
Summary and Comment. 
 
¶2. (U) During his March 13 report to the National 
People's Congress (NPC), Supreme People's Court (SPC) 
President Xiao Yang announced that local, 
intermediate, and higher level courts handled 
8,205,007 cases in 2006, an increase of 2.07%.  Of 
this total, there were 798,572 criminal cases, 
4,831,043 civil cases, 125,976 administrative cases, 
and 2,149,625 enforcement cases.  Trial-level courts 
handled 701,379 criminal cases, in which 889,042 
persons were convicted and 1,713 persons acquitted. 
Under a pilot program conducted in ten higher-level 
courts, 378 victims and family members received RMB 
7.8 million in state compensation.  There were 429,852 
prisoners who received reductions in sentence and 
20,254 who received parole. 
 
¶3. (U) Procurator General Jia Chunwang reported that 
procuracies approved detention for 891,620 defendants 
and filed suit against 999,086 defendants in 2006.  Of 
this total, there were 47,228 detentions and 46,607 
filings in murder, bombing, rape, and kidnapping cases 
and 419,578 detentions and 445,849 filings in burglary 
and robbery offenses.  There were 24,211 detentions 
and 27,728 filings for economic crimes, of which there 
were 3,729 detentions and 3,634 filings for 
intellectual property offenses, an increase of 16.7% 
and 12.6%, respectively. 
 
Death Penalty Review 
-------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) Both reports discussed implementation of death 
penalty review procedures introduced in 2006, which 
mandate second-instance trials by higher courts in all 
death penalty cases and review of death penalty 
verdicts by the SPC.  The SPC is prepared to assume 
final review of all death penalty cases, Xiao stated. 
In addition, lower-level courts are currently 
conducting trials in second-instance death penalty 
cases.  Through these measures, courts will limit 
imposition of the death penalty to the minority of 
cases that present the most egregious criminal conduct 
and severe harm to the public, the report noted.  The 
use of the death penalty should be strictly controlled 
through perfecting final review and strengthening 
human rights protection, Xiao stated. 
 
¶5. (U) Jia Chunwang echoed SPC President Xiao's 
comments on death penalty reforms during his report. 
Because courts handling second-instance death penalty 
cases have not been handling trials, as is now 
generally required, local procuracies do not have 
specialized prosecutors able to handle those cases. 
The provincial procuracies will make internal 
adjustments to ensure that this task can be properly 
handled, Jia stated. 
 
IPR Cases 
--------- 
 
¶6. (U) According to Xiao, courts handled 2,277 
criminal intellectual property infringement cases 
 
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involving 3,508 defendants in 2006.  In the civil 
arena, the courts handled 14,056 cases, of which 5,751 
cases involved copyright infringement, 2,378 cases 
involved trademark infringement, 3,227 cases involved 
patent infringement, and 1,188 cases involved unfair 
competition. 
 
New Mediation Mechanism 
----------------------- 
 
¶7. (U) Courts annulled, altered, or held unlawful or 
ineffective agency action in 14,250 administrative 
cases and upheld agency action in 37,360 cases.  Under 
a new mechanism, the courts have explored a form of 
mediation in which the involved administrative agency 
agrees to modify its action in return for the 
plaintiff dismissing suit.  The courts have used this 
method in 32,146 cases, which represents 33.82% of the 
total of administrative cases. 
 
Corruption 
---------- 
 
¶8. (U) Courts handled 23,733 corruption and 
dereliction of duty cases, of which there were 359 
commercial bribery and 8,310 official bribery cases. 
Of the official bribery cases, there were nine cases 
involving officials at the provincial or ministerial 
level. 
 
¶9. (SBU)  Jia Chunwang said the procuracy handled 
33,668 corruption cases involving 40,041 defendants, 
of which 29,966 have been formally charged.  There 
were 18,241 cases formally established that involve 
major dereliction of duty offenses, of which 623 cases 
involved corruption and acceptance of bribes with an 
amount of RMB1 million or more.  There were 1,670 
fugitives arrested, 3,878 defendants involved in rural 
corruption, 10,742 defendants involved in state-owned 
enterprise corruption and 930 defendants involved in 
investigative misconduct (such as illegal detention or 
forced confessions).  Jia cited 9,582 commercial 
bribery cases with RMB1.5 billion involved.  He 
specifically mentioned the investigation of officials 
connected with the State Food and Drug Administration, 
but did not refer to the year's biggest corruption 
case in Shanghai, apparently because the case has not 
yet been submitted to the procuracy. 
 
¶10. (U) The procuracies handled 16,662 supervision 
cases in which officials failed to establish a case. 
There were 14,858 persons who should have been 
detained, 10,703 cases that should have been filed, 
and 2,846 defendants whose sentences were improperly 
reduced or who improperly received parole, according 
to Jia.  Procuracies dismissed 4,569 cases in which a 
criminal process was improperly used in civil 
commercial disputes.  Jia acknowledged that there were 
233 cases involving detentions that exceeded legal 
time limits. 
 
¶11. (U) The procuracies appealed in 3,161 criminal 
cases and 12,669 civil and administrative cases and 
prosecuted 2,987 judicial personnel for duty crimes. 
The procuracies handled 477,596 petition and visit 
cases, Jia stated. 
 
Supervising the Judiciary 
------------------------- 
 
¶12. (U) Xiao reported that judicial supervision 
continues to be a problem, with 292 judges 
investigated for violations of the law and 109 judges 
convicted criminally.  The courts firmly accept the 
supervision of the National People's Congress and its 
standing committee, Xiao stated, a theme he repeated 
several times.  Last year, the SPC conducted an 
internal investigation to address 241 suggestions from 
the NPC and the Chinese People's Political 
Consultative Conference (CPPCC). 
 
¶13. (U) Continuing problems in the courts include poor 
quality of judicial decisionmaking, excessive time 
required to handle cases and ineffective enforcement 
of judgments.  The main reasons for these phenomena 
are (1) a number of judges lack the ability to 
properly manage cases, (2) some judges lack 
 
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professional ethics and maintain a biased and 
subjective attitude in deciding cases and (3) a small 
number of judges and court leaders distort the law for 
their personal benefit.  A focus on criminal cases in 
2007 should stress anti-corruption and strict 
punishment of corruption and dereliction of duty 
offenses.  The procuracies face similar problems, 
according to Jia, who cited an insufficient ability to 
conduct legal supervision, inadequate training of 
prosecutors, lack of standardization in law 
enforcement, unlawful acts by prosecutorial staff and 
inadequate resources in the central and western 
regions. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) Aside from the references to new death 
penalty review procedures, this year's judicial 
reports, which traditionally garner lower approval 
ratings than other NPC reports, followed the same 
format as previous years and revealed little that was 
new.  Xiao and Jia, who will both be retiring before 
the next NPC, admitted continuing problems and renewed 
old promises to make improvements, but their familiar 
rhetoric is unlikely to assuage rising public concerns 
over corruption and rights protection. 
 
RANDT