Chapter 59 Chapter 57 Breakthroughs and Disadvantages of Civilian Anti-corruption

Only by allowing non-government anti-corruption to have an institutionalized outlet, can non-government anti-corruption forces be better incorporated into the entire sequence of anti-corruption resource allocation, making it a renewable resource. In the "sunshine" supervision of the work and life of officials at all levels, the figure of our country's non-government anti-corruption forces has been seen from time to time in recent years. The reporter's investigation found that with the final exposure of the "South China Tiger Photo Falsification Incident" in Shaanxi Province as a sign, my country's civil anti-corruption has gradually changed from the traditional methods of reporting, letters and visits, to the Internet as a platform for anti-corruption, and has formed an important branch outside the system. anti-corruption power.

From another point of view, although this kind of network non-government anti-corruption has obvious advantages such as openness, transparency, speed, and wide influence, it has also been questioned and criticized due to many deficiencies in legal norms. A number of interviewed experts believed that, as the anti-corruption situation in my country is becoming more and more serious, how to effectively regulate, mobilize and give full play to non-governmental forces to participate in anti-corruption actions while integrating official anti-corruption resources, so that official resources and non-governmental resources can be integrated. Forming a benign interaction should become a new topic for in-depth research by relevant departments.

The civil anti-corruption campaign before the Internet became popular was more or less tragic.Those single-handed civil anti-corruption activists are facing the current elite who hold public power and rich social resources. Chen Rongjie is one of the admirable old people.Since retiring from the Hunan Loudi Highway Bureau in 1981 and returning to Changsha to settle down, the 64-year-old Chen Rongjie devoted almost all of his energy to reporting corruption among officials. In March 2003, Jiang Yanping, a female tycoon in Hunan Province and the former party secretary and deputy general manager of Hunan Jianliu Company, was sentenced to death with a suspended death sentence.

In the 20 years since his retirement, this old man, known as the "anti-corruption fighter" by the people, has pulled down more than 20 corrupt officials who were greedy for money and sex.The old man Chen Rongjie was also retaliated against for "harming" the interests of some people, and he was in danger many times. The reporter's investigation found that with the development and popularization of the Internet, such a "lone ranger" type of traditional anti-corruption has gradually disappeared, and the Internet has opened up a safer and more convenient new channel for private anti-corruption - private anti-corruption personnel or self-built Websites, or use major website forums to present all the evidence and materials in hand, and directly call on and gather non-governmental forces to promote official involvement in the investigation of corruption cases.

What caused a sensation was that in June 2004, Li Xinde, known as "the first person to monitor public opinion", posted "The Kneeling Deputy Mayor - Jining, Shandong Province" on the "China Public Opinion Monitoring Network" he created. City Deputy Mayor Li Xinchou’s Action Record” details Li Xin’s suspected corruption, bribery, kidnapping, intentional injury and other violations of law and discipline. It also includes several photos of Li Xin kneeling to the whistleblower Li Yuchun.After the procuratorate intervened in the verification, Li Xin was finally punished by law.

At present, the depth and breadth of anti-corruption activities on the Internet have been advanced. In addition to self-built websites, non-governmental anti-corruption activists are more likely to create sensational effects by posting posts on major well-known forums to provide maximum support for discipline inspection departments, procuratorial agencies, and supervisory agencies. Departments provide leads on corrupt practices. Under the strong anti-corruption offensive of the private network, in 2008, Zhou Jiugeng, director of Nanjing "Sky Price Tobacco", Lin Jiaxiang, director of Shenzhen "Indecent Girls", Cao Zhengzhi, director of Jiange "Saving", Dong Feng, secretary of the "monogamy" district committee, and other officials successively sacked. In 2009, Wei Juntu, director of the Dongyang City Audit Bureau, was dismissed from his post due to public outcry caused by publishing a list of public funds for entertainment consumption in 2003; A list of local officials who purchased demolition and resettlement houses at a low price was exposed and was "double-regulated"...

According to the statistical report of China Internet Network Information Center, by the end of 2008, the number of Chinese netizens reached 298 million.The non-government anti-corruption activists in this huge group can complete the entire reporting process by simply clicking the mouse while sitting at home. The hidden anti-corruption power is enough to make many corrupt officials shudder! Our country's non-government anti-corruption forces have attracted high-level attention.As early as 2001, the Supreme People's Procuratorate established an online reporting platform. On December 28, 2005, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision also announced for the first time the websites of the Letters and Calls Office of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Reporting Center of the Ministry of Supervision.

According to statistics, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection's online reporting center has only been open for half a year, and it has accepted 32,500 reports.As of 2008, 18 provincial-level discipline inspection and supervision agencies across the country have successively opened reporting websites. These all indicate that online reporting has officially been included in the official and authoritative anti-corruption channels. However, the reporter's investigation found that, in stark contrast to the scene of spontaneous civil anti-corruption on the Internet, the enthusiasm of citizens to report has cooled down in these official anti-corruption channels.According to the information disclosed in the 2008 "Reporting Publicity Week" by the Beijing Procuratorate, in the past five years, only 35% of the cases accepted by the Beijing Procuratorate were reported by the public, which is a significant decline from the nearly 70% at the beginning of this century.

"The main reason for this phenomenon is that our country's protection of witnesses is not strong enough." Du Liyuan, a lawyer from Beijing Zhongsheng Law Firm, analyzed in an interview with reporters, "Our country's legal provisions on witness protection are too principled. It lacks practical protection measures; and it focuses on passive post-event punishment, and only after the witness is violated, the way of punishing the crime is used to make up for it. It can be said that there is a huge legal gap in the protection of witnesses.” "National anti-corruptionists like to use the Internet to fight corruption because the Internet has many advantages such as wide spread, convenient communication, virtual identity, and low risk." Professor Li Chengyan, a doctoral supervisor at the School of Government and Administration of Peking University, analyzed to reporters. "Using the Internet not only has It is beneficial to protect oneself, and it is easy to create a social sensation, attracting the attention of relevant departments, so that the revealed corruption incidents can enter the judicial process as soon as possible.”

Many interviewed experts also pointed out that in the discipline inspection and procuratorial organs, many people are used to confusing reporting with letters and visits, resulting in the public's right to report not being well protected.At the same time, in some places or departments, most of the reporting letters of the whistle-blowers fell into the sea, and there were also cases of retaliation by the whistle-blowers.Due to the unsmooth official reporting procedures, the Internet has been favored by non-government anti-corruption forces. "The reporting methods provided by our country still have disadvantages such as low efficiency and lack of supervision." Li Chengyan believes that "many netizens choose non-governmental anti-corruption methods because they do not want to passively wait for the anti-corruption department to fight corruption after reporting, but hope that they can take the initiative in anti-corruption With the help of the platform of the Internet, the pressure of public opinion will push the government to do more in anti-corruption.”

"Although the government has provided a way to report corruption online, many people still choose to report on the Internet." Mr. Zhang, the person in charge of an anti-corruption website in Beijing, told reporters, "The reason why they choose to fight corruption online is that many people are worried about being reported. People’s retaliation and attack, and the network’s strong concealment can just protect itself. Of course, it is not ruled out that some people do not know the official reporting channels.” As far as we know, there is no special law to protect whistleblowers in our country.Although some relevant regulations are scattered in various departmental laws, they lack practical operability, so there are endless incidents of whistleblowers being retaliated against.According to He Zengke, director of the Institute of Contemporary Marxism of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, 9 out of 10 anti-corruption celebrities selected in the 30 years of reform and opening up have been retaliated against. "The non-governmental anti-corruption using the Internet as a platform can be said to be a kind of public reporting, which puts enormous pressure on the departments responsible for supervision." Yin Yungong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with reporters, "According to the traditional reporting method, anti-corruption Whether the department has investigated and dealt with it, and what the result is, the whistleblower is not clear. Through anti-corruption on the Internet, the supervision department must respond from time to time under the pressure of public opinion, so that the public can learn about the progress of the case in a timely manner.” The reporter's investigation found that the current non-government anti-corruption platform using the Internet is opening up new anti-corruption channels with its advantages of being fast, effective and cheap. A lot of doubts and accusations. "Non-governmental anti-corruption is a double-edged sword. Only when the anti-corruption department is fully aware of this can it make good use of non-governmental anti-corruption forces." Yin Yungong said, "Since non-governmental anti-corruption is to publicize information on the Internet with great fanfare, it is easy to startle the snake and make the target of the report as soon as possible. Preparations, prior collusion or destruction of evidence, not only makes the investigation more difficult, but puts the whistleblower in a passive position of being held accountable for defamation." Most of the current online non-government anti-corruption reports are anonymous reports, but compared with the traditional anonymous reporting methods, they have greater influence and wider spread.However, while the non-government anti-corruption cracked down on a group of corrupt officials, there were also some problems such as spreading false rumors, public opinion trials, and even cyber violence. "In group psychology, people have a need to express a sense of social justice." Professor Qi Shanhong, a doctoral supervisor at Nankai University, said frankly in an interview with reporters, "In the virtual world of the Internet, it is easier for people to express this need vividly. Catharsis. However, it is also easy to become a double-edged sword, and it will evolve into a kind of spiritual group violence when it goes to the extreme. The civil power in the virtual society is easy to lose its rationality here and cause great harm to the society. " "Fighting against corruption must be done in strict accordance with the law. It is necessary to affirm citizens' anti-corruption enthusiasm, but also to realize that 'human flesh searches' and 'mass trials' cannot replace formal judicial procedures." method, but the phenomenon of 'media trial' may appear. Due to the premature intervention of public opinion, some individual cases have developed into public incidents that spread across the country, which may affect judicial justice under the pressure of public opinion." There have been such cases before, some "network monitoring list" content is too simple, lack of strong evidence.Since non-government anti-corruption is difficult to supervise and manage, it is easy to cause inaccurate information, which leads to the infringement of the privacy of the public. Even the non-governmental anti-corruption platform also provides convenience for some people with ulterior motives to attack, frame, and retaliate against others. In the opinion of many interviewed experts, the lack of legal norms has become the biggest flaw in civil anti-corruption.Therefore, for civil anti-corruption, it is necessary to regulate it by law to avoid false accusations, slander, interference with case investigation, and unclear reporting. It is understood that the norms of non-government anti-corruption are also in full swing. On December 23, 2008, the Sixth Session of the Standing Committee of the Eleventh National People's Congress reconsidered the "Draft Law on Tort Liability", which stipulates that network service providers should bear joint and several liability for using websites to infringe on others' legitimate rights and interests such as reputation rights and privacy rights. Responsibilities are clearly defined. In this context, the current civil anti-corruption in our country is undoubtedly on the tip of the law. Whether it is the promoter, the participant, or the provider of the network platform, it is possible to infringe on the privacy rights of others and bear a huge legal burden. risk. The existing discipline inspection commission, supervisory department, anti-corruption bureau, procuratorate and court have formed a complete set of supervision and judicial system.How to effectively link civil anti-corruption and institutional anti-corruption has become an unavoidable practical problem. In August 2006, Wu Guanzheng, former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, pointed out at a training class for cadres of discipline inspection and supervision: "We must broaden the channels for the masses to participate in the construction of a clean and honest government." In January 2009, Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Supervisor In an exclusive interview with Xinhua Net, Ma, Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Director of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention, also revealed that the discipline inspection and supervision agencies have special personnel to collect online public opinion every day.This shows that the high-level attitude is quite clear when it comes to dealing with civil anti-corruption issues. According to the reporter's understanding, whether it is my country's anti-corruption functional agencies or experts and scholars, it is generally believed that in addition to individual anti-corruption, some civil organizations, such as associations, industry associations, chambers of commerce, etc., should promote my country's administration according to law, prevent the abuse of public power, Play a greater role in punishing and preventing corruption. "It is necessary to enhance the democratic atmosphere in the society, expand citizen participation, promote grassroots democracy, and promote openness in administrative affairs, so as to create favorable conditions for non-governmental organizations to participate in anti-corruption. The government should design a scientific and reasonable evaluation mechanism and incentive mechanism for non-governmental organizations to fight corruption, and improve Its anti-corruption initiative and enthusiasm.” Du Zhizhou, a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Center for Integrity and Governance, School of Public Administration, Tsinghua University, believes that “as a non-governmental organization, it must maintain its own integrity, strengthen the code of conduct and professional ethics education for employees, and improve the image of non-governmental organizations. Strengthen the ability of non-governmental organizations to fight corruption and promote integrity." "To realize the effective connection between non-government anti-corruption and institutional anti-corruption, the key is to not only find an institutional outlet for the enthusiasm and enthusiasm of netizens in anti-corruption, but also allow the government to better utilize its investigation and deterrence capabilities." Du Liyuan suggested, "The first is to support and protect whistleblowers. Introduce whistleblower laws or whistleblower rights and interests protection laws as soon as possible, and improve whistleblower protection start-up procedures, tainted witness systems, and specific protection measures. In addition to investigating and punishing anti-corruption reports according to law, official anti-corruption agencies should be confident support the behavior of whistleblowers and protect the personal safety of whistleblowers. The second is to establish a compensation system for whistleblowers. When the public has made contributions to the anti-corruption and paid the cost, the government should recognize and compensate them in a timely manner.” Many countries and regions in the world have not only formulated laws to protect witnesses, but also set up special witness protection agencies to provide "special protection" to witnesses, including whistleblowers.For example, Britain enacted the "Witness Protection Act" as early as 1892, and Hong Kong, my country also established the "Witness Protection Regulations" in the 1970s. The judiciary implemented 24-hour protection measures for witnesses, including whistleblowers.In addition, countries including Germany, Canada, and Australia have enacted witness protection laws.In countries that do not have separate legislation on the protection of whistleblowers or witnesses, the protection of whistleblowers is often stipulated in the procedural law. "Non-governmental anti-corruption efforts should be conducive to national stability and social harmony." Yin Yun believes, "As an anti-corruption department, we must be cautious about corruption clues provided by the non-government, carefully check them, and deal with them calmly. We must not wrong any good people. It is necessary to maximize the benefits of non-government anti-corruption, protect the rights and interests of non-government anti-corruptionists and encourage more anti-corruption behaviors." "The premise of enacting civil anti-corruption laws is to ensure that citizens' constitutional rights are not damaged." Qi Shanhong said, "It is necessary to ensure that citizens have the right to criticize and suggest state organs and government officials, and even more to report and expose ugly phenomena. Guidance It is a systematic project to build a harmonious society for citizens to exercise normal rights and continuously improve the rational level of non-governmental anti-corruption. It is an extreme approach to simply advocate or blindly protect or blindly pursue responsibility. For this point, we need to listen to the people Form a broad consensus among government agencies, legislative and law enforcement agencies." Many experts interviewed believe that in countries or regions with high international integrity, officials are collectively supervised by the public, public opinion and the media.In this sense, the core proposition of anti-corruption lies in whether the government is willing to delegate supervision power to the society.Then, giving the non-government anti-corruption an institutionalized outlet must be an important proposition that cannot be avoided in the next stage of our country's anti-corruption struggle.