Opinions on Further Strengthening Border Health and Quarantine Efforts and Lawfully Punishing Violations and Crimes that Threaten Border Health and Quarantines

Promulgation Date: 2020-3-13
Title: Opinions on Further Strengthening Border Health and Quarantine Efforts and Lawfully Punishing Violations and Crimes that Threaten Border Health and Quarantines
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Promulgating Entities: Supreme People's Court, Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ministry of Public Security et al.
Source of text: http://news.jcrb.com/jsxw/2020/202003/t20200316_2130743.html
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These opinions are drafted in order to further strengthen border health and quarantine efforts and to lawfully punish illegal and criminal conduct endangering border health and quarantines, to preserve public health and safety, and to ensure the people's security in their lives and health; and are based on relevant laws, judicial interpretations, and provisions.

I. Fully recognize the important significance of border health and quarantines to preserving public health and security.

Border health and quarantine plays an important role in preventing infectious diseases from entering and leaving the country, ensuring the people's security in their lives and health, and maintaining public health and safety and social stability and order. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to border health and quarantine efforts, especially since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic; General Secretary Xi Jinping has made a series of important instructions and instructions on strengthening the legal safeguards for public health, reforming and improving the systems for disease prevention and control, and completing work systems for combining prevention and control, joint prevention and control, and mass prevention and treatment. All levels of people's courts, people's procuratorates, public security organs, judicial administrative organs and customs should truly elevate their political standing, unify their thoughts and actions with the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions and instructions, resolutely implement the Party Central Committee's decision-making and deployments, enhance the "four consciousnesses", strengthen the "four self-confidence" and achieve the "two preservations"; from the perspective of implementing overall national security. promote the construction of a common human destiny, always placing the people's security in their lives and physical health at the forefront, and truly increasing the level of border health and quarantine administrative law enforcement and judicial case-handling. Especially in facing the serious current trend of the novel coronavirus spreading oversea and the risk of it spreading into the country through ports of entry increasing, all types of violation and crimes impeding border health and quarantine should be lawfully, promptly, and strictly punished, to build a solid border health and quarantine line of defense and to resolutely curb the transmission and spread of the epidemic through ports of entry, so as to provide strong legal safeguards for preserving public health and safety.

II. Punish illegal and criminal conduct that impairs border health and quarantines.

In order to strengthen border health and quarantine efforts, to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases into and out of the country and to protect the public's health and safety, the Criminal Law and the Border Health and Quarantine Law have provisions on illegal and criminal conduct impeding border health and quarantine and on their punishment. People's courts, people's procuratorates, public security organs, and customs shall correctly understand and strictly apply the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law and the Border Health and Quarantine Law when handling cases of impeding border health and quarantine, and lawfully punish related violations and crimes.

(1) Further strengthen administrative law enforcement for border health and quarantine. Customs should strengthen border health and quarantine efforts and publicity at all ports, guiding those entering and exiting the country, as well as units and personnel receiving quarantine oversite, to strictly comply with border health and quarantine laws and other laws and regulations, and to cooperate with and accept border health and quarantine from customs. At the same time, the extent of administrative law enforcement for border health and quarantine should be increased, lawfully giving administrative punishments for violations of the border health and quarantine law and its implementation measures that do not constitute crimes.

(2) Lawfully punish crimes impairing border health and quarantines. On the basis of article 332 of the Criminal Law, carrying out any of the following conduct in violation of the provisions on border health and quarantine is conduct impeding border health and quarantine:

1. Persons infected or suspected of being infected with a quarantined infectious disease who refuse to make a health declaration, have their temperature taken, medical inspections, epidemiological surveys, medical screening, sampling, and other health and quarantine measures put forward by customs in accordance with the border health and quarantine law and other relevant laws and regulations; or who refuse health and treatment measures such as isolation, being held for examination, on-site examination, or transfer for care.

2. Persons infected or suspected of being infected with a quarantined infectious disease who conceal illness by means such as untruthfully completing a health declaration card, or who fake situations by methods such as forging or altering quarantine lists or certificates;

3. Cross-border transport or mailing of microorganisms, human tissue, biological products, blood, or their derivative products that might cause transmission of quarantined infectious diseases that one knows or should know are under approval only management, without getting approvals.

4. Where vehicles entering or exiting the country discover persons infected or suspected of being infected with quarantined infectious disease, and the person responsible for the vehicle refuses health and quarantine or refuses to accept quarantine and treatment;

5. Where vehicles crossing the border coming from countries or regions where quarantined infectious diseases are spreading, have non-accidental deaths onboard for which the cause of death is unknown, and the persons responsible for the vehicle intentionally conceal the situation;

6. Other refusals to perform quarantine measures put forward by customs in accordance with the State Border Health and Quarantine Law and other laws and regulations.

Where the above acts cause the transmission or a serious risk of transmission of the plague, cholera, yellow fever, coronavirus pneumonia, or other infectious diseases designated and announced for quarantine by the State Council; it is to be convicted and punished as the crime of impairing border health and quarantine in accordance with Criminal Law article 332.

Units that carry out conduct which impedes border health and quarantine, causing the transmission or serious threat of transmission of the plague, cholera, yellow fever, coronavirus pneumonia, or other infectious diseases designated and announced for quarantine by the State Council; the unit shall be given a fine and the directly responsible managers and other directly responsible persons are to be convicted and punished.

III. Establish and improve work mechanisms to ensure that prevention and control is lawful, scientific, and orderly

(1) Do a good job of connecting the adminitrative and criminal. Customs should make ports of entry the first stage of epidemic prevention and control, strictly pursuing administrative law responsibility for violations of border health and quarantine, improving processes for law enforcement case-handling, and persisting in strict law enforcement and lawful case-handling. Do a good job of connecting administrative law enforcement and criminal justice by promptly completing formalities to transfer cases that meet the requirements for opening a criminal prosecution in the border health and quarantine regulation sector to the public security organs in accordance with relevant provisions. Administrative punishments must not be used in place of criminal penalties.

(2) Accelerate case investigation and handling. Public security organs should promptly open cases and investigate cases of crimes impeding border health and quarantine, fully collecting and fixing evidence. Cases of crimes impeding border health and quarantine that occur during the period of coronavirus epidemic prevention and control should be quickly investigated and solved, and promptly exposed to be a powerful deterrent.

(3) Strengthen procuratorial functions. People's procuratorates should strengthen oversight of case opening for cases of crimes impeding border health and quarantine, and where they discover cases that should be opened that were not opened shall request that the public security organs explain the reasons, and where they find that the reasons are not sufficient shall lawfully inform the public security organs to open a case. In cases of crimes impeding border health and quarantine, the people's procuratorates may submit opinions and recommendations to the public security organs regarding the nature of the case, the collection of evidence, and the application of law. Arrest shall be promptly approved, and prosecutions promptly initiated for criminal suspects in cases of crimes impeding border health and quarantine that meet the requirements for arrest or indictment. Give play to the role of procuratorial recommendations to promote institutionalized governance of epidemic prevention and control.

(4) Strengthen communication and coordination. People's courts, people's procuratorates, public security organs, judicial administrative organs, and customs, should strengthen communication and coordination, clearing contact channels, and establishing and normalizing cooperation mechanisms. Both strictly carry out legally-prescribed duties with each department carrying out and responsible for its own duties, and also cooperate and coordinate with each other to share resources and complement each others' strengths, forming a combined force for lawfully punishing violations and crimes impeding border health and quarantine. Major cases with a large social impact or which are the focus of public sentiment should be handlined in accordance with the requirements of the 'three synchronizations': lawful disposition, public sentiment guidance, and social management and control, to promptly get to the truth of the matter, and complete efforts to guide public opinion and respond to public sentiment.

(5) Persist in having the punishment meet the crime. Further standardize border health and quarantine law enforcement activities so that law enforcement is truly strictly regulated, just, and civil. Focus on understanding the policy of blending leniency and severity: comprehensively determine the type and range of punishment for administrative violations based on the extent of the harm and the degree of repentance. Where crimes are suspected, emphasize combating those where the circumstances are vile and there are serious consequences; where the crime is minor and there is honest repentance, lawfully give a lighter disposition.

(6) Preserve fairness and justness. People's courts, people's procuratorates, and public security organs are to lawfully safeguard each procedural right of criminal defendants and suspects, especially the rights of defense, to truly protect parties' lawful rights and interests, and preserve the accurate implementation of law. Judicial administrative organs should strengthen guidance and oversight of lawyers' defense representation, promoting lawyers' practice in accordance with laws and regulations. People's courts, people's procuratorates, public security organs, judicial administrative organs, and customs should earnestly implement responsibility systems where 'whoever enforces the law, educates on the law', selecting example cases and explaining the law through cases, increase warnings and education, deter violators, and releasing positive energy, to create a positive legal and social environment for epidemic prevention and control.