Jolene Chen
On September 25, 2019, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate released six typical cases of administrative supervision, which mainly pertain to the procuratorate’s supervision over the administrative penalties imposed by a land and resources bureau, compulsory enforcement by the courts, and administrative actions. The procuratorate’s timely exercise of its supervisory authority protects the public interest of the state and society, as well as the rights of the citizens. This essay will briefly analyze two of the cases.
Case 1: A supervision case involving non-litigation enforcement against a Xu in Zhejiang Province for illegal occupation of land the supervision of the enforcement by the court and the administrative agency under the “separation of adjudication and enforcement” mode to protect basic farmlands are not being illegally occupied encroachment.
In this case, basic farmland and agricultural land were being illegally occupied for construction of a house and other architectural facilities, the people’s court found that since Xu, as subject of a fine enforcement, did not have any actual property available the enforcement procedure was to be terminated. However, the people’s procuratorate found in the course of its prosecution that Xu had several bank accounts and had obtained a bank loan during the enforcement. The procuratorate thus made recommendations to the people’s court and requested the resumption of the enforcement and the exhaustion of all means of property investigation. The procuratorate also corrected the erroneous information in the list of credit-less individuals subject to compulsory enforcement. As a result, the people’s court subsequently indicated that the enforcement of all fines was successfully concluded.
Case 2: A supervision case involving a Ji suing a township government for a declaration that its administrative conduct was illegal the procuratorate earned public credibility through hearings, enhanced the investigation to verify illegal administrative conduct, proactively guided the parties to settle and effectively resolved administrative disputes.
Ji and a certain village committee in Henan Province had a dispute over a land contract. The township government assigned dozens of workers to forcibly survey the land at issue, but was subsequently stopped by Ji and family members. The parties brought five administrative lawsuits and two civil lawsuits. In particular, Ji brought an administrative action in the county people’s court, in which a declaratory decision was sought for the township government’s attempt to forcibly conduct a survey of the land that was contracted to Ji was illegal. The courts of first and second instances both held that since the township government’s survey did not affect the Ji’s rights and obligations, so the matter did not fall within the scope of administrative action. Ji subsequently applied to the procuratorate for supervision, and the people’s procuratorate of the city conducted a hearing procedure for the supervision of an administrative action and decided to investigate this case. The procuratorate also leveraged the use of cross-examination between the parties. The officers from various fields then stated their opinions in public after the hearing, the parties heard those opinions, and this case was settled upon the consent of the parties, thereby leading to the substantive resolution of the administrative dispute.