The 2025 Annual Academic Conference of the China Association of Criminal Procedure Law was held on Nov 8 in Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin province. Miao Shengming, Deputy Prosecutor General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, addressed the opening ceremony.
Miao emphasized that the Criminal Procedure Law serves as important guidance for standardizing the exercise of procuratorial power. He called for using the upcoming amendment to the law as an opportunity to implement the arrangements made at the third and fourth plenary sessions of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China regarding the improvement of the socialist rule of law system with Chinese characteristics.
He noted that with the evolving landscape of criminal offenses and the emergence of new crime patterns and characteristics, it is crucial to fully and accurately implement the criminal policy of tempering justice with mercy and focus on addressing challenges in policy application.
He called for establishing a comprehensive oversight system throughout the entire criminal procedure process, and further diversifying methods, approaches, and procedures to enhance the effectiveness of legal supervision. Efforts should be made to enhance oversight in areas such as investigations, trials, execution of criminal punishments, and supervision over law enforcement activities, and to strengthen supervision over post-arrest tracking and transference between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice, creating a "closed-loop" supervision framework, he added.
Miao also emphasized strengthening human rights protection in law enforcement and administration of justice by making the principle of respecting and safeguarding human rights more specific, institutionalized, and integrated into the system. He urged procuratorial organs to ensure comprehensive and law-based performance of their criminal prosecution function, with continuous efforts to make supervision and collaboration mechanisms in investigations more substantive, standardized, and systematic.
Miao further called for improving the leniency system for defendants who plead guilty and accept punishment, enhancing judicial supervision over compulsory measures such as asset seizures, detention, and freezing, and further improving the supervision mechanism characterized by "stationing + circuit + technology".
