Following a seminal session of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee held in 1978, China has been pursuing a policy of reform with a focus on modernization and increased links with the outside world. The results of these reforms include dramatic economic growth, improved living standards, rapidly expanded legal education leading to improved legal systems, and increased public awareness of and commitment to human rights and the rule of law.

In this context, on the basis of ten years’ programming in assisting criminal justice reforms in China, the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy (ICCLR), together with Geospatial/SALASAN Consulting Inc., launched the CCPRCP in April 2004 to support the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) reform of the prosecution services and its plan to combat corruption and promote professionalism within the prosecution profession. This project, like the other ICCLR China projects, was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), as an initiative under its China Country Program Framework.

When the SPP and ICCLR began planning the project, the SPP had already accumulated many years of experience in international cooperation and ICCLR had been programming in China with legal research institutes and justice agencies for nearly a decade. However, for both organizations the CCPRCP represented a first opportunity to work jointly under a bilateral cooperation mechanism in support of the Government of China’s intention to implement the rule of law through reform of the country’s criminal justice system.

The project strove to achieve four major outcomes:
(i) A strengthened capacity of the SPP and the prosecution profession to fulfill their constitutional mandates in a judicious, efficient and effective manner;
(ii) An improved policy and institutional environment to guide and regulate the criminal prosecution system;
(iii) An enhanced quality of human resources and human resource management in the SPP and the criminal prosecution system;
(iv) Gender equality sensibilities integrated into all of the planning and operational functions of the criminal prosecution system.

The mandate of SPP includes public prosecution, oversight of the investigation and trial process, law enforcement and correctional services, combating corruption and the abuse of power, and providing legal advice to the government. The project was implemented through a series of activities designed to increase SPP’s capacity to introduce reforms that increase justice and equity for the Chinese people, and that adhere to international human rights standards. These activities have included research, study tours, and interactive events such as conferences, presentations and workshops that have reached senior-level policy makers in both Canada and China. For example, in June 2006, senior officials from both countries participated in a China-Canada Joint Symposium on the Reform of Criminal Justice in Beijing, followed by a smaller and more focused seminar on anti-corruption, including fair investigation practices. In June 2007, senior SPP officials participated in the 20th Anniversary Conference of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law in Vancouver, an opportunity not only for exchange of ideas and information, but for networking and contact with international opinion leaders in criminal law reform.

When reviewing the results achieved by the project, it must be acknowledged that the contribution of CCPRCP is only one of the international elements contributing to the progress of legal/judicial reforms in China. Nevertheless, between 2003 and 2008, SPP undertook a body of work directly related to CCPRCP outcomes, and the project was the prime source of technical assistance from Canada to SPP reforms. The major focus of SPP during the period was a concerted effort to fight corruption, particularly amongst functionaries and government officials, as well as steps to improve the recognition and protection of human rights in the legal process. Major achievements include:

• Enhanced monitoring of legal proceedings to maintain justice and respect legal rights? including clearing thousands of cases of illegally extended pre-trial detention, requiring audio-video tape recording of interrogation of suspects, excluding illegally obtained testimonial evidence, prosecuting officials for the use of torture, participating in the court review proceedings to reduce the use of death sentence, and monitoring the prisons in the administration of justice.
• Improvement of the trial system within the Chinese legal/judicial environment, and specifically an improvement of the death penalty review system, the retrial system in civil cases, enforcement systems in civil cases, the people’s juror system and the trial management system.

• Enhanced public participation in the prosecution process by introducing an external monitoring system of “people’s supervisors” to prevent corruption within the prosecution service. This started in September 2003 and had been adopted by 86% of the procuratorates across the country by the end of 2007. This system contributed significantly to the transparency of law enforcement and promotion of justice.

• Expanded training programs for all prosecutors in China. Massive training activities have been conducted through the various on-job training centers and law schools to improve the professional quality of prosecutors. New appointees are now required to pass a high competitive national judicial exam. Most chief prosecutors at national and provincial levels are now experienced prosecutors with graduate level law degrees.
• Acting as the central authority to implement the United Nations Convention against Corruption through cooperation with foreign counterparts, prosecuting tens of thousands of corruption cases throughout the country, recommending preventive measures to the various level of government departments, monitoring the trials of civil and commercial law cases to detect judicial corruption, and introducing legal interpretations to ensure proper implementation of anti-corruption laws.

CCPRCP has also contributed to SPP’s work in addressing issues of poverty and the law as they enforce national standards that make the delivery of judicial services between rich and poor provinces more equitable, investigate and prosecute crimes of corruption, ensure fairness in the prosecution process, improve pre-trial criminal procedures and enhance the rights of suspects, and address specific issues such as protection of women and children and transnational trafficking of women and migrant workers.

The project has addressed gender in most areas of the criminal justice system. It has supported the work of SPP in criminal law reform including assault, violence and corruption, in criminal procedure including disclosure of information and examination of witnesses, and in management practices, particularly the need for women in leadership roles in legal and judicial institutions and other organizations. Some progress has been made in the area of violence against women and the protection of victims, especially women, in the criminal justice system. On the ground, a pilot project has been set up by the SPP office in Hebei Province to address the issue of domestic violence, for which the project has provided materials and information.

Given the challenges posed by implementing such an all-encompassing project, SPP and ICCLR came together at the end of the second year in order to reflect on their collective experience and to adjust the activities of the final two years based on this experience. They also met at the end of the project to take stock of progress made towards results, lessons learned and recommendations for the future. The materials found on this website are an attempt to capture that mutual understanding.

Both Canadian and Chinese participants in the project have incorporated lessons learned, and will carry them forward in their work. Some of the most significant are that:

• The SPP is embedded in a culture with a long history of preserving a national essence while learning from foreign experiences. Many of the sources of expertise that ICCLR calls on to deliver its programming are embedded in a culture of development assistance. However, the CCPRCP works best when it is promoting constructive engagement based on the principle of mutual benefit.
• One of the benefits of constructive engagement is its capacity to generate new but unanticipated areas of mutual interest.
• Effective partnerships need mutual respect and recognition and continued relationship-building is key to effective management.
• Gender awareness, analysis and mainstreaming are fundamental to fair and effective criminal justice. However, building gender awareness is a process that must take place over time. The importance of gender considerations must be demonstrated in practical ways that demonstrate how gender mainstreaming can be implemented at the prosecutorial level.
• Project effectiveness can be increased by focusing on a selected number of legal and judicial reforms that are of key importance to SPP.