Chief Justice Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), delivered a report on the work of the SPC on March 12 to the third session of the 12th National People’s Congress.

Following are highlights of Zhou’s report:

Numbers:

China convicted about 1.18 million criminal offenders in 2014, 2.2 percent more than that of last year.

Terrorism, separatism up 15%

Chinese courts handled 558 cases related to separatism and terrorism, an increase of 14.8% year-on-year.

A total of 712 criminals involved in these cases, including the case in which a jeep crashed into people in Tian’anmen Square in Beijing on Oct 28, and the terrorist attack in a railway station in Kunming, were convicted and punished, a rise of 13.3% year-on-year.

Court acquits, rectifies mistakes

In 2014, courts acquitted 518 defendants of public prosecution and 260 defendants of private prosecution. Moreover, there were 1,317 revisions of criminal cases to rectify past mistakes, including the case of Hugjiltu.

Anti-corruption

According to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP), prosecutors probed 3,664 cases of graft, bribery and embezzlement of public funds involving more than 1 million yuan ($164,000) each case last year. A total of 4,040 public servants at county level and above, including 589 at city level, were investigated.

A total of 55,101 people were investigated for duty-related crimes in 41,487 cases, an annual increase of 7.4 percent in the number of people, according to the report.

Prosecutors handled serious cases of 28 officials at and above provincial or ministerial levels, including Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou in accordance with the law last year, according to the report.

In addition, 7,827 bribers were prosecuted for criminal offenses, up 37.9 percent from the previous year.

The work report of the SPC showed that Chinese courts in 2014 convicted and punished 44,000 criminals in 31,000 cases of embezzlement and bribery, including severe cases such as Liu Tienan and Li Daqiu.

A total of 2,394 people were convicted of offering bribes last year, up 12.1 percent from the previous year.

Fox Hunt

China’s judicial authorities on March 12 pledged to intensify its international manhunt for corrupt officials who had fled abroad in the vain hope of escaping justice.

Secession-related cases

Country saw a 40.7-percent rise in the number of criminal cases that involved instigation of secessionist activities in 2014.

Cyber crimes

China will impose tough measures on cyber crimes in accordance with the law, in a bid to cleanse the Internet space.

Environmental violations

Chinese prosecutors may take up public interest litigation against polluters.

The number of criminal cases involving polluters increased by 8.5 times year on year in 2014. Courts nationwide closed about 16,000 criminal cases related to environment protection.