国内英语新闻:China's prosecutors to come under public supervision

BEIJING, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- A public supervision scheme for China's prosecutors will be rolled out nationwide next month, a senior Communist Party of China (CPC) leader said Tuesday.

A pilot public supervisor scheme, which started six years ago, had proved effective in supervising judicial departments, said Zhou Yongkang, a Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, at a meeting in Beijing.

From next month, the measure would be formally adopted nationwide, he said.

More work should be done to improve the selection and management of public supervisors and to draft regulations, he said.

Government departments, non-governmental organizations, state-owned enterprises and communities could nominate members of the public as supervisors to the procuratorates.

The public supervisors would give opinions to procuratorates when prosecutors decided to drop corruption charges, or when a suspect in the corruption case complained about the arrest.

They could also oversee the actions of prosecutors, to prevent illegal detentions, obtaining confessions through violence and torture, and illegal collection of evidence.

A report by the Supreme People's Procuratorate to the National People's Congress in March 2008 said about 86 percent of procuratorates had taken part in the trial.

At the meeting, Zhou admitted that the country still faced a tough task in judicial reform.

The government would work out new policies to attract more prosecutors and judges to work in local judicial departments, he said.