THE SUPREME PEOPLE'S PROCURATORATE has issued new rules on compulsory medical decision procedure supervision to prevent those convicted of crimes escaping punishment by pretending to be mentally ill so they bear no criminal responsibility, and people being hospitalized to shut them up. Thepaper.cn comments:

Before 2012, when the Criminal Procedure Law was revised, it only took the administrative authorities to decide whether to carry out enforced hospitalization of people they deemed a threat to public order or national security.

As a result, some criminals escaped from justice by bribing officials to declare them mentally ill, while some healthy people were hospitalized by force and treated as psychopaths just to keep them quiet.

For instance, Peng Baoquan, a resident of Hubei province, underwent several days of compulsory treatment in a local psychiatric hospital because he took photos of people petitioning the local government, while Xu Lindong, a farmer in Henan province, spent six and a half years in a psychiatric hospital because he helped a disabled neighbor to complain against local government.

The new rules issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate not only fully guarantee the correct implementation of compulsory medical procedures, but also better safeguard the legitimate rights of plaintiffs.

They explicitly stipulate that compulsory medical treatment is only applicable to those who are mentally ill and who have threatened public security or other people's safety, and whose mental condition has been authenticated through legal procedures and meets the criteria exempting them from criminal liability, only the court can make the decision.

The newly published rules are also praiseworthy as they urge the procuratorates to fulfill their duties as watchdogs of compulsory hospitalization cases.

For judicial justice and to protect people's legal rights and interests, procuratorates must exercise their legally-bound veto power when they find a court's decision is wrong through an independent investigation, which they can and must do.