Richard Han

ximhan@126.com

ZHANG ZIXING, a member of the standing committee of the Shenzhen CPC committee and secretary of the committee’s commission for discipline inspection, was elected as director of the Shenzhen Municipal Supervision Commission at the 3rd plenary meeting of the Sixth Session of the Sixth Municipal People’s Congress yesterday.

Zhang swore an oath to the Constitution at the session, which concluded yesterday, and became the first director of the newly established agency.

Zhang, who was born in November 1966, joined the Party in March 1987.

After graduating from Sun Yat-sen University in 1991, Zhang started his career at the publicity department of the Guangzhou CPC committee. He was appointed as secretary general of the Guangdong CPC committee’s commission for discipline inspection and a member of the commission’s standing committee between April and October 2015, before taking the post in Shenzhen.

According to a Xinhua report last October, which quoted a report from the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), China will set up its first national supervision commission this year. A draft law on national supervision will be submitted to the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), which usually convenes its annual gathering in March, for approval.

Supervisory commissions will be set up by the People’s Congress at provincial, city and county-levels across the country early this year to ensure that “all public servants exercising public power” are subject to supervision, according to the report.

The new supervision commission will share responsibility and organization with the CCDI. China already started launching pilot supervisory programs in Beijing, as well as Shanxi and Zhejiang provinces in early 2017.

The establishment of a national supervisory commission and the push to stipulate a law on national supervision is part of efforts to reform the State supervisory system, according to an official communique released after the seventh plenary session of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in January last year.

The new supervisory system will integrate the functions of current supervision authorities and corruption prevention agencies, as well as departments for handling bribery and dereliction of duty cases or the prevention of duty-related crimes under procuratorates at various levels.