Disciplinary bodies address departmental corruption

Internal investigations root out officials exploiting their power as inspectors

Disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies carried out rigorous self-reform and punished about 2,300 corrupt officials within their own departments last year, according to the country's top anti-graft bodies.

An additional 110 discipline inspection officials were transferred to judicial organs for investigation, according to the 2022 review statement recently issued by the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National Commission of Supervision.

Among the penalized, 77 people were at the bureau level or above, and about 460 people were at the county level.

It said that last year, discipline inspection and supervision organs at all levels firmly implemented the strategic principle of full and rigorous self-governance and took serious steps to investigate corruption, collusion, cover-ups and other nefarious behavior.

Disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies at all levels received 22,100 tip-offs about their own staff and have dealt with 17,200 of them so far. They also gave out cautions or ordered officials in question to give written statements 7,000 times, and filed 2,200 cases for investigation, the statement said.

Last year, the national disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies used criticism and ordered oral or written explanatory statements to handle about 15,400 disciplinary inspection officials. They handed down light penalties and made minor organizational adjustments to positions for about 2,000 people.

The agencies also issued heavy penalties and made major adjustments to positions for about 330 officials, and they dealt with 161 people through investigation and prosecution due to their serious violations of Party rules and national laws.

While addressing the plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in January, President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said that discipline inspection and supervision organs should submit themselves willingly to oversight from all sides, manage their staff in a strict manner and punish corrupt elements in the system harshly, so as to prevent being blind to their own problems.

A communique adopted at the second plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which was held in Beijing in January, stressed the importance of training high-caliber discipline inspection and supervision professionals who are competent enough to shoulder their mission on China's journey in the new era.

The document also vowed to build a strong discipline inspection and supervision corps that is absolutely loyal to the Party, and to eliminate "black sheep" to ensure the team is uncompromising in its integrity.

Zhuang Deshui, deputy head of Peking University's Clean Government Research Center, said officials of discipline inspection and supervision do not have natural immunity to corruption, and should not be free from the scope of supervision. Instead, they should straighten out their own position and take the initiative to accept supervision, which is the objective requirement for the organs of discipline inspection and supervision to maintain the independence and impartiality of supervision.

The power of supervision and the power of handling cases exercised by discipline inspection and supervision organs is a kind of public power, which should also follow the most basic operational law of power and should be subject to stricter supervision. If the power is improperly used, serious corruption problems will arise, Zhuang said.

The work report submitted by the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to the 20th CPC National Congress showed that over the past five years, 43,000 officials in discipline inspection and supervision organs received cautions or were ordered to give explanatory statements, 721 officials were given organizational punishment, 16,000 people received disciplinary punishment and 620 people were transferred to judicial organs for investigation.

"The key to the transformation of the supervisory power and the power to handle cases is that the power loses its restriction and is "captured" by senior power, privilege and self-interests. If the supervisor and the supervised collude with each other, how can the impartiality of supervision and case-handling be guaranteed?" he said.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee has put forward a series of new requirements for the construction of Party conduct and clean government. The realization of these new requirements needs a strong discipline inspection and supervision team with iron discipline and constant improvement of the mechanism for disclosing the power and accountability of discipline inspection, Zhuang said.