Preventive Countermeasures Against Duty-Related Crimes in Rural Land Expropriation

    From 2007 to 2009, the procuratorial organs of Qinzhou City filed and investigated 21 cases involving 24 persons of duty-related crimes in the field of rural land expropriation, among which 8 cases involved 8 persons in the land and resources departments, and 13 cases involved 16 persons among village cadres, with the amount involved reaching 2.2348 million yuan. Duty-related crimes in the process of rural land expropriation infringe upon the interests of the state and the collective, hinder rural economic development, trigger collective petitions, and affect rural stability. This is an issue worthy of attention. Therefore, it is highly necessary for us to identify the characteristics and causes of duty-related crimes in current rural land expropriation, and actively seek solutions, so as to create a sound legal environment for building a new socialist countryside.

I. Main characteristics of duty-related crimes involved in rural land expropriation

(1) The nature of the crimes is mainly embezzlement and misappropriation, and the amounts involved are large. From the situation in Qinzhou City, the duty-related criminal cases occurring in the field of land expropriation are concentrated on the charges of embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds. Among the 21 cases involving 24 persons filed and investigated, there were 20 embezzlement cases involving 23 persons, accounting for 95.23% and 95.85% of the cases and persons filed in this field respectively; and 1 case involving 1 person of misappropriation of public funds. Moreover, the amounts involved in duty-related crimes have been increasing day by day. Among the 21 cases filed and investigated, there were 12 major embezzlement cases involving more than 50,000 yuan, accounting for 57.14% of the total number of cases filed, among which 10 cases involved embezzlement of more than 100,000 yuan; and 1 case involved misappropriation of state land expropriation compensation funds, with the amount involved reaching 200,000 yuan.

(2) The criminal subjects are mainly “village officials” such as village committee directors, village Party branch secretaries, accountants, and cashiers, and the methods of committing crimes are relatively simple. “Village officials” directly participate in land expropriation work and hold real power over surveying, management and distribution of land expropriation compensation funds, and so on. Therefore, in the process of land expropriation, the criminal subjects are mainly “village officials.” Among the 24 persons filed and investigated, 16 were “village officials,” accounting for 66.6% of the total number of persons filed and investigated; and 6 were personnel of township land and resources offices, accounting for 25% of the total number of persons filed and investigated. Influenced by their own factors and environment, “village officials” often use simple and direct methods to commit crimes, with less involvement of intellectual factors, and most of them commit crimes by such means as not recording income in the accounts, inflating expenditures, and falsely reporting the area of expropriated land to extract state land expropriation compensation funds. For example, Feng, the Party branch secretary and director of a village committee in a certain town in Lingshan County, Qiu, the accountant, and Wen, the cashier, after the village committee received more than 200,000 yuan in land expropriation compensation funds, invented various pretexts and privately divided and embezzled the money in the form of telephone fees, salary subsidies, and meal expenses.

(3) Group cases and connected cases are relatively prominent. Because the procedures of land expropriation compensation work are relatively complicated, and the types and nature of the compensated items also differ, requiring coordination among all links, duty-related criminals often adopt the method of acting jointly and conspiring collectively, taking advantage of their respective positions in charge of specific work to collude with each other in embezzling state land expropriation compensation funds. Among the 24 persons filed and investigated, there were as many as 18 persons in joint crime cases, accounting for 75% of the total number filed. For example, when the director and deputy director of a certain village committee in Lingshan County assisted the government in land expropriation for the Yujiang River water diversion project, they adopted the means of falsely reporting land ownership to defraud more than 30,000 yuan in land expropriation compensation fees. After the procuratorial organ filed and investigated 2 embezzlement cases involving 2 persons in March 2007, it dug deeper along this clue, uncovered 10 embezzlement cases involving 10 persons among village committee cadres in 4 village committees of 2 towns in the county, and also uncovered 3 embezzlement cases involving 3 persons among staff of the county's land and resources management department.
(4) Duty-related crimes in rural land expropriation are highly harmful and have a bad impact. Land is the source of survival for farmers. Once rural land is expropriated, farmers lose to a certain extent the foundation on which they depend for survival. Land compensation funds, as collectively accumulated funds, should be used to develop production, increase accumulated collective welfare, and public welfare undertakings, and for farmers they can be called “life-saving money.” Mass petition incidents triggered by land expropriation conflicts have become a prominent social phenomenon. The duty-related criminal acts of village cadres arising from land expropriation have seriously damaged the interests of the farmer masses, affected the building and development of a new socialist countryside, damaged the image of the Party and the government in the minds of the people, seriously endangered the harmony and stability of rural society, and caused extremely bad social impact.

II. Main causes of duty-related crimes involved in rural land expropriation

(1) Weak supervision and unsound systems give criminals an opportunity. Township land departments are in charge of the main work of land expropriation review, surveying, verification, and distribution of compensation funds, but this work has not been effectively supervised. Investigation found that in some units where cases occurred, the higher-level competent authorities did not manage subordinate departments in a standard way and their systems were unsound, for example, there was no system of checks among members of the land expropriation team, no mass supervision system, no public disclosure system, and no review and recheck system, and hidden risks of crime existed. In the process of rural land expropriation, how to strengthen supervision over and restraint of important departments and personnel with approval and decision-making power has not yet formed a highly targeted and operable supervision mechanism or specific measures. In addition, there are many loopholes in village-level financial management, and land expropriation compensation funds lack effective management. Village-level financial management does not conscientiously implement financial systems, village affairs are not made public, and violations of regulations are prominent. After land expropriation compensation funds are distributed to the village committee, the relevant higher-level departments neither manage nor inspect them, resulting in situations where the village Party branch secretary or village committee director directly keeps and arbitrarily disposes of them. Although some village committees ostensibly have mass supervision organizations, they exist in name only, and the distribution and use of the village collective economy are still decided by one or a few individuals such as the village Party secretary or village committee director. Some villagers who know the situation either do not want to speak out because of personal ties, or dare not speak out because they fear the power of village cadres, afraid of bringing retaliation upon themselves, which causes some village officials to be unafraid and do whatever they please.

(2) The overall quality of grassroots cadres is relatively low, and their legal awareness is weak. At present, the overall quality of grassroots cadres in China's rural areas is generally low. Among the 16 “village officials” investigated and punished, they were older and had low educational levels. Many village cadres were elected by relying on clan forces to canvass votes, and after taking office they held the idea of “grabbing a handful” during one term, believing that in the countryside, far from the emperor and beyond his reach, no one would manage them, and that taking a little graft would go unnoticed by gods or ghosts, so in the face of considerable land expropriation compensation funds they took desperate risks. In addition, current legal popularization education in rural areas is merely formalistic, few village cadres truly study and know the law, and their legal concepts are weak. After some village cadres privately divided land expropriation compensation funds in the process of land expropriation, they believed that “they had merely used state money because their ideological level was not high, and that once the money was returned, there would be no problem.”

(3) Penalties are relatively light, and the intensity of punishment is insufficient. Many reasons can be summarized for the frequent occurrence of duty-related crimes in the field of rural land expropriation, but from the perspective of judicial organs, weak “cracking down” is also one of the reasons. Punishment is a special form of prevention. If the intensity of punishment is not great, it will inevitably fail to curb crime. From the cases filed and handled by the procuratorial organs of Qinzhou City, the sentences were generally not heavy. Among the cases filed and handled from 2007 to 2009, 17 persons had already been sentenced, among whom 12 were sentenced to suspended sentences, accounting for 70.59% of the sentenced persons, and 5 were sentenced to actual imprisonment, accounting for 29.41%. This makes people feel that the majesty of the law is not enough to greatly deter the criminal acts of village officials.
 

III. Preventive countermeasures against duty-related crimes involved in rural land expropriation

(1) Strengthen the building of grassroots organizations and provide a strong organizational guarantee for anti-corruption work in rural areas. Village-level organizations with the Party branch as the core are the Party's most grassroots organizations and are the bridge and bond linking the Party with the broad masses, playing a major role in maintaining rural harmony and stability. Therefore, strengthening the building of rural grassroots organizations, improving the overall quality of grassroots personnel, and enhancing the cohesion and combat effectiveness of grassroots Party organizations are effective guarantees for curbing duty-related crimes by village cadres in the process of rural land expropriation. For example, selecting demobilized military cadres and outstanding young cadres to serve in village committees for temporary training, selecting outstanding cadres from Party and government departments to serve as instructors for new countryside construction in village committees, and absorbing some college students who have returned to their hometowns to take posts in villages, so as to strengthen the grassroots, understand rural conditions and public opinion, and promote rural stability and development, are very good measures. In addition, it is necessary to effectively strengthen the building of the villagers' democratic self-governance system, safeguard villagers' democratic rights, and enhance the intensity of supervision.

(2) Establish and improve relevant systems and reduce the space for crime. System issues are fundamental, overall, and long-term. Relying on systems to punish and prevent corruption is the fundamental way to do a good job in anti-corruption and advocating integrity. First, improve the rural grassroots work system. Governments at or above the county (district) level should unify the treatment standards of village cadres, reduce the worries of rural workers, encourage and introduce highly educated personnel to serve as village cadres, and improve their awareness of integrity and their level of village affairs management. Clarify the respective scope, duties, procedures, methods, and responsibilities of management and supervision at the three levels of county (district), township, and village, and plug supervision loopholes. Second, improve the land expropriation system. Under the current situation in which land policies and regulations are not yet perfect and specific, relevant government departments should carry out investigation and research as soon as possible, and according to specific circumstances, make comprehensive, detailed, and highly operable provisions on land prices, compensation standards, compensation procedures, and so on, and further standardize the land management system and operating procedures. Formulate administrative measures for rural land expropriation compensation work, use systems to standardize the work of various links such as various permanent land expropriations and temporary land occupations in rural areas, clarify the responsible subjects of land expropriation management and supervision, supervision measures, accountability, and so on, and provide institutional guarantees for rural land expropriation compensation work. Third, improve the village-level financial management system. It is necessary to further improve the village-level financial management system, strictly implement financial approval, and require major expenditures to be discussed by the villagers' assembly. Establish a accountability system for financial disclosure work, and hold relevant responsible persons accountable for deliberately concealing content that should be disclosed or disclosing it with false data. Strengthen rural financial supervision, establish special fund management institutions, set up special accounts for each village's compensation funds, and strengthen supervision, inspection, and auditing.

(3) Deepen the investigation and prevention of duty-related crimes and create an atmosphere of honest administration. Investigating and handling duty-related crimes in the field of rural land expropriation is a powerful means of deterring crime, and at the same time it is also necessary to strengthen crime prevention work and take preventive measures. First, strengthen reporting publicity and obtain case clues. In response to the development of key engineering projects in the region, follow the mass line, take the initiative, go to villages and households, go deep into the grassroots, and collect information. Expand case sources through multiple forms and channels such as reviewing and analyzing the counting, measuring, rechecking, signing of demolition agreements, compensation standards, and distribution of compensation fees for attachments on the ground. Great importance should be attached to issues reported by villagers involving land expropriation compensation, and careful analysis and screening should be carried out, and preliminary investigation work should be done well. Second, increase the intensity of punishment and form a deterrent force. When rural cadres infringe upon the interests of farmers, this “disadvantaged group,” their degree of subjective malice and the impact caused are no less than, or even greater than, those of “state functionaries” infringing upon “state-owned assets.” From the perspective of the social harm of crime, duty-related crimes in the field of land expropriation should rightly be severely punished. It is necessary to strengthen the intensity of cracking down, and once there are illegal and criminal acts, punish them severely. For duty-related illegal and criminal acts, investigate and handle each one as it is discovered, never tolerate or accommodate them, use the severity of criminal punishment to deter people, and use the necessity of criminal punishment to awaken people, thereby more effectively curbing the occurrence of duty-related crimes. Third, strengthen prevention work and adhere to combining cracking down with preventing. Cracking down and preventing are two different means, but their purpose is completely the same, and it is necessary to persist in combining punishment and prevention and addressing both root causes and symptoms. Procuratorial organs should, in connection with investigating and handling duty-related crimes in the process of land expropriation compensation, go deep into key projects and key project construction to carry out duty-related crime prevention, and promptly put forward preventive suggestions for existing signs and hidden dangers of duty-related crimes, so as to prevent and reduce the occurrence of duty-related criminal cases in the process of land expropriation compensation.

□Huang Qikang, Deputy Chief Procurator of the Qinzhou Municipal People's Procuratorate