Evaluating New Coercive Measures Under China’s Amended Supervision Law: Compulsory Appearance, Ordered Availability, and Protective Custody
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/6910cg87Keywords:
Compulsory appearance, ordered availability pending investigation, protective custody, Supervision Law, supervisory coercive measures.Abstract
The 2024 amendment to China’s Supervision Law introduced three coercive measures—compulsory appearance, ordered availability pending investigation, and protective custody—thereby moving the supervisory-measures system toward greater gradation and specificity. The measures respond, respectively, to nonappearance, the need to impose limited obligations where retention in custody is unnecessary or inappropriate, and urgent safety risks involving a person who has not been retained. They fill gaps in the former framework, strengthen the lawful investigation of serious duty-related violations and crimes, and may reduce excessive reliance on retention in custody. Their institutional value, however, does not make them self-justifying. Each measure interferes, to a different degree, with personal liberty, freedom of movement, dignity, privacy, and procedural rights. Vague thresholds, formalistic approval, weak time limits, and inadequate remedies could lead to routine use, blurred boundaries, intensification of nominally mild measures, or disguised detention. This article evaluates the three measures within the structure of supervisory coercion and the relationship between supervisory investigation and criminal justice. It argues that their legitimacy depends on precise statutory conditions, differentiated approval, written proportionality reasoning, strict duration control, effective notification and review, and continuing legality scrutiny after transfer for prosecution. Properly constrained, the new measures can improve investigative effectiveness while preserving a stable balance between anti-corruption enforcement and rights protection.
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