The People’s Procuratorate of Fengtai District of Beijing published the latest update on Lei Yang case which has attracted extensive attention in China. After several-months of investigation into the case, the Procuratorate finally reached a decision that the five involved police officers will not be prosecuted.
People have different reactions on the decision. Some feel disappointed since Lei Yang is dead and the police officers who have done something wrong will not get tried.
Let’s start with the investigation. As you may know in a general case, the investigation institution for a criminal case shall be public security bureau in China, while in this case, the investigation institution is the procuratorate. This is because the suspects in this case, police officers, are state employees. In China, cases involving some specific crimes committed by state employees shall be accepted and investigated by the People’s Procuratorate, such as corruption, bribery, and dereliction of duty.
Second, for all cases, no matter investigated by the public security bureau or the procuratorate, shall be submitted to the procuratorate for the examination, and the procuratorate will decide whether to initiate a public prosecution on the case.
After the examination, the procuratorate will make a decision about whether to submit the case for prosecution. For the case that the
corpus delicti
of a crime committed by a criminal suspect have been ascertained, the evidence is concrete and sufficient, and the suspect shall be subject to the criminal liability in accordance with the law, the procuratorate will decide to refer the matter for prosecution.
There are specific provisions on the circumstances which the non-prosecution decision shall be made, such as, no crime was committed, or the crime was not committed by the suspects, the criminal suspects or the defendants died, or the circumstances are apparently minor without serious harm, which is not deemed as crimes, or the circumstances just as it was said in Lei Yang case, a case that is minor and the offender is not required to be subject to punishment or can be exempted from punishment according to the
Criminal Law
.
Here, the Fengtai Procuratorate admitted that a crime of misconduct in office has been committed, however, based on the circumstances are minor, there is no need to impose a penalty. It is important to note that under this kind of circumstance, unlike other circumstance we listed before, the procuratorate is authorized by the law to make a decision based on its discretion.
Therefore, according to the post, the suspects did commit a crime of misconduct in office, while the Fengtai Procuratorate made a decision after the investigation to not refer the matter for prosecution decision due to the minor nature of the infraction.