Cross-ministerial meeting held on legal publicity responsibility system

A joint conference on a responsibility system for legal publicity was held at the Ministry of Justice in Beijing on Oct 10.

Minister of Justice Zhang Jun pointed out that those who enforce the law should popularize it, emphasized that state organs not only elaborate and enforce the law, but also have responsibility for publicizing it.

Every state organ involved in law enforcement should popularize the law as should departments undertaking administration functions without law enforcement power, Zhang said.

It’s necessary to develop suggestions for implementation of a legal publicity responsibility system and urged that collection of such suggestions should occur before the end of November, according to the minister.

He emphasized that establishing and publishing a list of responsibilities where laws and regulations, legal publicity targets, main tasks and important measures of the industry are included would be beneficial to society.

One of the best ways to explain the law is to use cases, Zhang said, indicating that it’s possible to integrate legal publicity with case information showing the elements of investigation and evidence collection, penalty decision and execution.

He added that publishing typical cases through various channels not only provides references for law enforcement and judicial officers, but also help the general public to form rational expectations of law enforcement and judicial activities.

Zhang added that it’s necessary to make full use of different means of information dissemination, such as setting up sharing mechanisms and quantitative evaluation, to make national legal publicity work as an organic whole.

Zhang Jun, minister of Justice, speaks at the meeting of legal publicity responsibility system on Oct 10.

Officials from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Environmental Protection attend the meeting.