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The People's Procuratorate in Communist China: The Period of Maturation, 1951–54*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

George Ginsburgs  and
Arthur Stahnke
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Extract

In considering the organisational evolution and functional development of the office of the people's procuratorate in Communist China from 1951 to 19S4, a clear-cut distinction must be drawn between the two subsidiary stages into which this phase of the institution's history readily breaks down. The first spans the years 1951–52; the second extends through 1953 and 1954. For purposes of analysis, it would be best to keep them separate, for reasons that will soon become apparent.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 24 , December 1965 , pp. 53 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1965

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References

1 e.g., the case of Tzu-min, Wang in Chengtu, reported by NCNA, January 22, 1951, and Ta Rung Pao (Hong Kong), 01 24, 1951Google Scholar; Survey of China Mainland Press (SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), No. 54Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, the news story on “235 counter-revolutionaries sentenced in Shanghai; 21 executed,” Chieh-fang Jih-pao (Shanghai), 09 11, 1951Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 175. In connection with this case, the newspaper reported that “most of the cases were accumulated ones and have been repeatedly interrogated by public security and judicial organs which proposed preliminary sentences for the decision of the local MCC. Some of them were cases referred by the People's Procurator's Office for retrial” on grounds that the original punishment was too light.

3 “Enlarged Conference of People's Representatives in Chungking Discusses Suppression of Counter-Revokittonary Criminals,” NCNA, 06 20, 1951Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 122.

4 “Peking Municipal People's Tribunal Established,” NCNA, 03 26, 1952Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 304.

5 See, for instance, the report on “Hopei Province People's Court Sentences Liu Ch'ing-shan and Chang Tzu-shan to Death for Serious Corruption,” Ta Kung Pao (Hong Kong), 02 18, 1952Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 277.

6 On the progress of the “judicial reform movement,” see Gudoshnikov, L. M., Sudebnye organy Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki (Moscow: Gosyurizdat, 1957), pp. 36–47Google Scholar. Also, press reports on the development of the “judicial reform” campaign in Central-South China wrote, for instance, that “a total of 141 cadres took part in judicial reform in Hupeh province, including 45 cadres of the provincial Committee on Political and Legal Affairs, the Procurator-General's Office, the Committee of People's Supervision Department of Civil Affairs, Department of Cultural and Educational Affairs, trade unions, peasant associations, the Youth League, and the Democratic Women's Federation; 26 cadres of Hupeh Provincial People's Court; and 70 representatives of the various special districts, municipalities and hsien attending the Second Hupeh Provincial Judicial Conference,” Ch'ang Chiang Jih-pao (Hankow), 10 29, 1952Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 454.

7 Jen-min Jih-pao, People's Daily, May 21, 1954; also, the editorial, “Strengthen Procurators' Work to Safeguard National Construction,” ibid.; SCMP, No. 821.

8 Sudarikov, N., “Organy yustitsii Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki,” Sotsialisticheskaya zakonnost, 1951, No. 10, p. 50Google Scholar.

9 Ibid. p. 51.

10 Text given by NCNA, August 2, 1951; SCMP, No. 148.

11 Ibid.

12 Sudarikov, N., op. cit., p. 51Google Scholar.

13 Jui-ch'ing, Lo, “The Mighty Movement for the Suppression of Counter-Revolutionaries,” Jen-min Jih-pao, 10 11, 1951Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 212.

14 “Review of People's Supervisory Work during 1950 and Report on Work and Tasks for 1951,” ratified by GAC, 88th meeting, 06 8, 1951Google Scholar, NCNA, August 4, 1951; SCMP, No. 150.

15 Thus, Sudarikov, N., “Organizatsiya suda i prokuratury Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki,” Sotsialisticheskaya zakonnost, 1952, No. 5, p. 55Google Scholar, explains the presence in the 1951 “Provisional Regulations Governing the Organisation of People's Courts in the People's Republic of China” of a special section devoted to the question of the working relations between the people's courts and the offices of people's procurators by the fact that “the procuratorate in the Chinese People's Republic was being created anew, previously there had never been such an organ and as a consequence many unclear questions arose in practice concerning the issue of relations between these two organs.”

16 NCNA, March 7, 1952; SCMP, No. 290.

17 “A Batch of Counter-Revolutionary Criminals Dealt with in Sian,” NCNA, 06 20, 1951Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 122.

18 NCNA, September 28, 1951; SCMP, No. 184. This was but one of several incidents at the time in a mounting campaign by the régime against the Catholic Church in China. For further examples, see the case of Father Druetto, NCNA, October 31, 1951; SCMP, No. 207, and for a detailed discussion and analysis, see Wei, Henry, Courts and Police in Communist China to 1952 (Air Force Personnel and Training Research Center: Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, 1951), pp. 44–47Google Scholar. Father André Bonnichon, Former Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Université “L'Aurore” in Shanghai, has written a personal account of his brush with the Chinese Communist legal system. See his Law in Communist China (The Hague; International Commission of Jurists, n.d.).

19 Editorial, “Strengthen Procurators' Work to Safeguard National Construction,” Jen-min Jih-pao, May 21, 1954; SCMP, No. 821. In the same vein, , Cheng-wen, Tan (Deputy Chief-Procurator of the Supreme People's Procuratorate), “Improve the People's Procuratorial System, Consolidate the Legal System of the State,” Kuangming Jih-pao, 01 3, 1955Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 991.

20 e.g., “Corrupt Cadre Chen Chu-hun Sentenced to Death in Peking,” Jen-min Jih-pao, July 27, 1951; SCMP, No. 154.

21 Lunev, A. E., Sud, prokuratura i gosudarstvennyi kontrol v Kitcdskoi Narodnoi Respubliki (Moscow: Gosyurizdat, 1956), p. 53, note 1Google Scholar.

22 See “Suiyuan Provincial Commissioners of Industry and Commerce Sentenced for Dereliction of Duty; Deputy Magistrate Sentenced for Corruption,” Jen-min Jih-pao, October 22, 1951; SCMP, No. 207.

23 ibid.

24 The developments of the Yin, Sung case are reported in extenso in Ch'ang Chiang Jih-pao (Hankow), 02 11, 19, and 20, 1952Google Scholar; Nan Fang Jih-pao (Canton), 02 23, 1952Google Scholar, and September 3, 1952; SCMP, Nos. 282 and 409.

The published materials of the case are also notable in that this is one of the few instances in which the régime admitted the use of improper investigation techniques by personnel of the public security department. In effect, one of the persons punished for his rote in the incident, Chu Ti-hsing, Deputy Mayor of Wuhan and concurrently Director of the Public Security Bureau of the Municipality, was found “responsible for his failure over a long period to detect and rectify the mistakes of the members of the Public Security Bureau in such acts as forcing confessions from Chi, in the employment of corporal punishment …”

25 Text by NCNA, November 16, 1952; SCMP, No. 453 (passed at the 19th meeting of the CPG Council, November 15, 1952).

26 “Judicial Reform Movement Enters Constructive Stage,” NCNA, 10 29, 1952Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 44.

27 Ginsburgs, G., “The Soviet Procuracy and Forty Yearo of Socialist Legality,” American Slavic and East European Review, No. 1, 1959, p. 55Google Scholar.

28 Tan Cheng-wen, op. cit.; SCMP, No. 991.

29 Gudoshnikov, L. M., op. cit., p. 124Google Scholar. Likewise, “Central Committee of Campaign for Implementation of Marriage Law Set-up; March 1953 to be Propaganda Month,” NCNA, 01 16, 1953Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 495.

30 Sudarikov, N. G., “Demokratizatsiya semeino-brachnogo zakonodatelstva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki,” Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, No. 7, 1954, p. 40Google Scholar.

31 Jen-min Jih-pao, May 21, 1954; SCMP, No. 821.

32 Lunev, A. E., op. cit., p. 53Google Scholar.

33 Text transmitted by NCNA, January 5, 1953; SCMP, No. 495. See, also, the editorial, “Supervisory Work should be Strengthened in Financial-Economic Agencies,” Jen-min Jih-pao, January 6, 1953, and SCMP, No. 495.

34 NCNA, February 20, 1953, and NCNA, March 22, 1953; SCMP, Nos. 521 and 537. See, too, “Central-South Administrative Committee Issues Provisional Measures Governing Work to Handle Written and Verbal Requests of the People,” NCNA, 02 24, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 760, which, inter alia, recommended that “the people's governments of the hsien and administrative district level may set up joint reception rooms together with their prosecution and supervision organs.”

35 Lunev, A. E., op. cit., p. 53Google Scholar.

36 Chugunov, V. E., Ugolovnoe sudoproizvodstvo Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki (ocherki), (Moscow: Gosyurizdat, 1959), p. 79Google Scholar.

37 Ibid. p. 80.

38 NCNA, September 19, 1953; SCMP, No. 656.

39 Chieh Fang Jih-pao (Shanghai), 12 23, 1953Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 745.

40 Lunev, A. E., op. cit., p. 53Google Scholar.

41 “Tientsin Railway Special Court of Justice Strengthens Railway Staffers' and Workers' Education on Law and Discipline through Adjudication of Cases,” NCNA, 02 15, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 750; “Special Courts and Special Public Procurator's Offices Set Up in Part of the Industrial and Mining Districts and along Railway Lines,” NCNA, 04 1, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 789; “Railway Special Courts Set Up in Various Places,” NCNA, 09 5, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 912.

42 Lunev, A. E., op. cit., p. 49Google Scholar; Jen-nun Jih-pao, April 8, 1954, and SCMP, No. 798.

43 Hsin-min, Chou, “Kharakter narodnoi prokuratury Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki i ee zadachi,” Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, No. 6, 1956, p. 44Google Scholar.

44 In March 1954, far instance, supervision over the implementation of the “policy for the unified purchase and unified sale of grain” was identified as the main task of the day. See, Hung, Lin, “Judicial Organs Should Safeguard the Thorough Implementation of the Policy for the Unified Purchase and Unified Sale of Grain,” Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 7, 1954, and SCMP, No. 774, p. 13Google Scholar: “In the field of public security, there should be the keypoint and planned strengthening of the work of security in the food struggle, the strengthening of the investigation of sabotage activities and the breaking of cases. In the work of the courts and the offices of the people's procurators, important food cases should be investigated and disposed of with vigour, and there should be actively carried out among the broad masses of the people education in compliance with the law, raising the vigilance of the broad masses to the need for the protection of the state's construction, organising extensive and mass supervision and information activities, so that there may be discovered or prevented in good time all criminal acts that sabotage the purchase, sale and custody of food by the state.” In the same vein, , “Unscrupulous Merchants and Counter-Revolutionaries Sabotaging Food Policy Exposed and Punished,” Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 7, 1954, and SCMP, No. 774, p. 16Google Scholar.

45 Lunev, A. E., op. cit., p. 59Google Scholar.

46 For reports on the conference, NCNA, March 17 and April 13, 1954; Jen-nun Jih-pao, May 21, 1954; SCMP, Nos. 779, 794 and 821.

47 NCNA, March 17, 1954; SCMP, No. 779.

48 Jen-min Jih-pao, May 21, 1954; SCMP, No. 821.

49 NCNA, April 13, 1954; SCMP, No. 794.

50 e.g., Ginsburgs, G. and Pierce, R. A., “Revolutionary Law Reform in Outer Mongolia: A Study in the Impact of Soviet Legal Doctrine on a Backward Society,” in Szirmai, Z. (ed.), Law in Eastern Europe (Leyden: Sythoff, 1963), No. 7, p. 225Google Scholar.

51 Editorial, “Strengthen Further the Political and Legal Work during the Period of Economic Construction,” Jen-min Jih-pao, March 30, 1954; SCMP, No. 782. In the same vein, , editorial, “Strengthen Procurators' Work to Safeguard National Construction,” Jert-min Jih-pao, 05 21, 1954Google Scholar; and SCMP, No. 821.

52 Editorial, “Strengthen Procurators' Work to Safeguard National Construction,” Jen-min Jih-pao, May 21, 1954; SCMP, No. 821, 58 NCNA, March 29, 1954; SCMP, No. 782.

53 NCNA, March 29, 1954; SCMP, No. 782.

54 SCMP, No. 782, p. 8 (italics in original).

55 Editorial, “Strengthen Further the Political and Legal Work During the Period of Economic Construction,” Jen-min Jih-pao, March 30, 1954, and SCMP, No. 782.

56 Editorial, “Strengthen Procurators' Work to Safeguard National Construction,” Jen-min Jih-pao, May 21, 1954, and SCMP, No. 821.

57 Editorial, “Strengthen Further the Political and Legal Work During the Period of Economic Construction,” Jen-min Jih-pao, March 30, 1954; SCMP, No. 782. The final resolution of the conference echoed this theme, saying that “in particular, they [the people's prosecuting organs] should guard against and combat wrongful arrest, wrongful detention and miscarraige of justice as well as law-breaking acts on the part of certain public functionaries,” Jen-nan Jih-pao, May 21, 1954, and SCMP, No. 821.

58 NCNA, April 13, 1954; SCMP, No. 794.

59 Jen-min Jih-pao, May 21, 1954; SCMP, No. 821.

60 Fang, Chou, Gosudarstvennye organy Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki, translated from the Chinese by Gudoshnikov, L. M. and Ostroumov, G. S. (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Inostrannoi Literatury, 1958), p. 204Google Scholar. The original Chinese edition was published in Peking in 1957.

61 NCNA, April 13, 1954; SCMP, No. 794.

62 Jen-min Jih-pao, May 21, 1954; SCMP, No. 821.

63 In the months that followed, a series of conferences of the procuratorate were called at the provincial level to discuss the directives of the 2nd National Conference and review the work of the local apparatus. See, for example, “Procurators' Work Actively Developed in Shensi Province,” NCNA, 04 14, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 796; “First Yunnan Procurators' Work Conference Concludes,” Yunnan Jih-pao (Kunming), 07 16, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 892, Supp.; “Kwantung Provincial People's Procurator's Office Calls Conference to Determine Future Policies and Tasks,” Nan Fang Jih-pao (Canton), 08 6, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 967, Supp.; and the sections dealing with the work of the local procuratorate in Ta-tsun, Ku (Vice-Chairman of the Kwantung Provincial Government), “Report on the Work of the Kwantung Provincial People's Government During the Past Four Years,” submitted on 08 3, 1954Google Scholar, Nan Fang Jih-pao, August 16, 1954, and SCMP, No. 932, Supp.

64 Editorial, “Consolidate Further Public Order in the Countryside, Safeguard Agricultural Production-Construction,” Jen-min Jih-pao, April 28, 1954, and SCMP, No. 805.

65 NCNA, April 26, 1954, and May 10, 1954; SCMP, No. 807. See, too, editorial, “Take Active Steps to Cultivate Political and Judicial Construction Personnel,” Jennun Jih-pao, May 15, 1954, and SCMP, No. 825, and “2nd Class of Central School of Administrative and Legal Cadres Graduated,” NCNA, 07 7, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 846.

66 Speech by Chang Ting-cheng before the NPC in Peking on July 22, 1955, reprinted in Current Background (CB) (Hong Kong: US Consulate-General), No. 349.

67 Li Liu-ju, Deputy Procurator-General, “Explanatory Report on ‘Provisional Regulations Governing the Organisation of the Office of the People's Procurator-General’ and ‘General Regulations Governing the Organisation of Offices of the People's Procurators of Various Levels,’” delivered at the 12th meeting of the Central People's Government Council, September 3, 1951, and published in Jen-min Jih-pao, September 5, 1951. English translation in CB, No. 183.

68 Lunev, A. E., op. cit., p. 55Google Scholar.

69 Lunev, A. E., Sushchnost Konstitutsii Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki (Moscow: Gosyurizdat, 1958), p. 123Google Scholar.

70 e.g., Yunnan Jih-pao (Kunming), 05 14, 1954Google Scholar, and SCMP, No. 846, Supp.; Jen-min Jih-pao, June 4, 1954, and SCMP, No. 828; Jen-min Jih-pao, July 11, 1954, and SCMP, No. 859; NCNA, August 21, 1954, and SCMP, No. 875; “Smash the Activities of the U.S.-Chiang Secret Agents,” Nan Fang Jih-pao, August 28, 1954, and SCMP, No. 926, Supp. Also, see the case of misappropriation of tax funds prosecuted by the procuratorate in June, 1954, described in Fang, Chou, op. cit., pp. 209–210Google Scholar.

71 It should be added, however, thai not all the organs of government of the greater administrative ch'u went out of business immediately upon the formal abolition of the regions themselves. Thus, in the North-Eastern division, “because of the particularities in local conditions,” the administrative committee continued to function until the end of 1954 and the agencies attached to it probably did, too, including the local branch of the Supreme People's Procuratorate. Yung-an, Liu, Demokraticheskoe i sotsialisticheskoe stroitelstvo v severo-vostochnom Kitae (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1957), p. 156Google Scholar.

72 Hou-li, Wang, “The Courts and the Procurator's Offices in the Draft Constitution,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 07 7, 1954Google Scholar; SCMP, No. 852.

73 NCNA, August 1, 1954; SCMP, No 865