Supervision commissions will act within the law, official says

The supervision commissions will not become “super power bodies” and will only exercise power in accordance with the law, a senior official with the country’s top anti-corruption watchdog said on Monday.

The fundamental reason to set up the commissions is to strengthen the Party leadership in the fight against corruption, Yang Xiaodu, deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), said.

“The supervision commissions will not have super powers and they will receive supervision from the Party, the law-making body, the media and the public,” he said on the sideline of the ongoing annual session of the 13th National People’s Congress, the top legislature.

He said after the new supervision commissions are set up, they will only have a 10-percent increase in staff members compared with before, but their workload and responsibilities have increased much more.

The number of those holding public office, including the working staff in medical or educational institutes, subject to the supervision of the commissions at all levels has risen by 200 percent, according to Yang.

Yang said the commissions will merge with the commissions for discipline inspection at each level and will focus on investigating and punishing those who abuse power or are suspected of bribery.

He stressed that the commissions can’t replace the judicial authorities and will cooperate with them to curb graft.

When uncovering any criminal evidence, “we will transfer the suspected officials to the prosecuting department, and after careful examination, the prosecutors will make the final decision to charge them or not,” Yang said.

Since late 2012, 322 high–ranking officials have been placed under investigation for graft issues, according to the CCDI.

The 1st session of the 13th NPC is expected to deliberate and approve the national supervision law, establish the national supervisory commissions, and elect officials to the commissions.

By late February, the nation's 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions had elected directors of their supervisory commissions.