Closing The Graft Gap

In reality, the most common manifestationas of harassment and retaliation may be quite vague. But the law has set serious consequence of damage for informants as a precondition for initiating prosecution based on criminal liabilities.

Thus, it seems China's informant protection program exists on paper only.

A few years ago, the Supreme People's Procuratorate launched a pilot program aimed at protecting informants in several parts of the country. Under one measure, when an informant's personal safety or rights were endangered, 24-hour protection could be provided. But this was only a temporary measure, rendering it inadequate. And it was not institutionalized.

Hu Kehui, a former deputy prosecutor-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, has called for institutionalizing protection programs and has raised the issue with national legislators, but apparently to no avail.

In some countries, the judicial system provides protection for witnesses and informants before, during and after the whole legal process. If necessary, witnesses can be given a fresh start in life including a new identity or new job so they need not worry about revenge. But in China, that would be a complicated job that procuratorates could not do alone.

Exoneration for Witnesses

Cases involving bribery have increased rapidly in recent years. Bribery is usually secret, so testimony from a briber who agrees to be a key witness can be vital to building a case and winning a conviction. A suspect that turns prosecution witness is sometimes called a stained witness. But getting a briber to testify as a stained witness is difficult, since that testimony can be used against him or her.

Justice system reform in China should consider providing a system for exonerating stained witnesses. Such a mechanism would be conducive to breaking the alliance between bribers and bribees, which would encourage more bribers to testify.

Such a mechanism would have to follow a clarification of legal provisions. Under current procedures, stained witnesses are not covered by law, so there is no legal basis for witness exoneration. However, establishing legal status for tainted witnesses is a pre-requisite for encouraging bribers to actively cooperate with judicial officials during criminal investigations.
 
Recognizing the uniqueness of bribery as a crime is important. To increase chances that bribers will testify -- and help guarantee justice – China needs a system of exoneration that frees bribers from punishment if they take the initiative to testify for a bribery investigation or indictment.
 
Quota Issue

The procuratorate's Anti-Corruption Bureau operates under a numerical work quota process that's now a subject of calls for change. For example, proposals to eliminate quotas have been discussed during the National People's Congress by critics who call the system unreasonable as well as illegal.

But for now, our and similar bureaus without exception must function with clear-cut quantative requirements. These cover ratios of investigations to trials, indictments, closed cases, etc.

Work targets can play a suitable role in our work. But some numerical goals are set without proper deliberation.

For example, when some decision-making authorities learned that the ratio of cases indicted by prosecutors had declined, they demanded measures to improve the ratio.
 
Too great a focus on figures gets us nowhere. Moreover, a stiff quota system clashes with general policies that are designed to steer the system toward handling criminal cases with moderation.