Mechanism
Supervisory Detention Procedure: Approval Authority, Statutory Conditions, and Case Flow
How supervision cases flow from lead intake through investigation, detention, and prosecution referral under statutory authority limits.
Contents
The Detention Procedure Chain
Six approval stages from lead intake through referral to prosecution
On March 17, 2017, the Shangcheng District Supervision Commission in Hangzhou opened a case against Yu Jianjun and obtained approval from the municipal discipline commission to place him in liuzhi. It was the first use of supervisory detention after China launched its national supervision reform pilots. Investigators finished the case and sent it to prosecutors within 33 days. A court sentenced Yu to 15 years in prison for graft that December. Zhejiang had connected complaint intake, internal approval, isolated detention, and prosecution referral before a national Supervision Law existed. [7][8][9]
The 2018 Supervision Law extended that pilot structure nationwide. Implementing regulations issued in 2021 used 287 articles to specify lead management, preliminary verification, case registration, investigation, and referral. Amendments adopted in December 2024 added custodial care and release pending investigation while expanding the possible duration of liuzhi in specified cases. The CCP concentrated powers once divided among administrative inspectors, procuratorial anti-corruption departments, and Party discipline bodies inside supervision commissions that share offices and personnel with discipline commissions. [1][3][2]
A complaint enters an internal approval chain
Complaints, inspection referrals, audits, and material transferred by other agencies first become case leads. Case supervision departments register and route them, then select conversation, preliminary verification, temporary storage, or transfer. A preliminary review requires approval and a written plan. Its closing report supports the agency chief's decision on case registration. [5][4][3]
Once a case is registered, an investigation team gathers evidence under an approved plan. Its powers include interrogation, asset queries and freezes, searches, seizures, and technical investigation. The law requires full audio and video recording of interrogations. Because discipline and supervision commissions use the same offices and staff, one case against a Party member who holds public office can address Party discipline, duty-related violations, and criminal allegations together. Party sanctions remain inside the CCP. Suspected crimes eventually go to prosecutors. [6][3]
Every important authorization in this chain comes from within the discipline and supervision hierarchy. The agency chief approves case registration. The agency approves its investigation plan. Municipal and county commissions seek liuzhi approval from the next commission above them. Courts do not review detention before referral, and prosecutors receive the file after the supervision commission has finished its investigation. Layers of signatures constrain junior investigators while leaving the CCP discipline hierarchy free from an independent check. [1][3]
Liuzhi isolates the subject during investigation
The current Supervision Law permits liuzhi when investigators already possess some facts and evidence, important matters remain unresolved, and the case meets a listed condition. These conditions include major complexity, a risk of flight or suicide, collusion or destruction of evidence, and other obstruction. People suspected of offering bribes or participating in a joint duty-related crime can also be detained. [1]
Liuzhi occurs during the supervisory investigation. The subject cannot have a lawyer attend interrogation or inspect the file at this stage. Defense rights become operative after the case reaches prosecutors and enters criminal procedure. External research and human rights reports have also recorded solitary confinement, secret locations, sleep deprivation, and allegations of abuse. [15][16][10][12]
The law directs investigators to notify the detainee's work unit and family within 24 hours, but it lets them delay notice when they claim a risk of destroyed evidence, collusion, or witness interference. The investigating office decides whether that exception applies. A family may learn that someone was taken without learning the detention site, and no retained lawyer can enter the supervisory proceeding. The notice rule leaves the isolation intact. [1][12]
The 2024 amendment expanded maximum detention
Ordinary liuzhi lasts up to three months and may receive one extension of up to three more months. Under the amended law, a duty-crime case carrying a possible sentence of at least ten years can receive another two months if the National Supervision Commission approves or orders the extension after the first six months expire. A provincial or national commission that discovers a qualifying major new offense may also restart the detention clock once with National Supervision Commission approval. [1][2]
The amendment also created ordered release pending investigation for up to 12 months and custodial care for certain people considered at serious safety risk. Investigators ordinarily have seven days to convert custodial care into liuzhi or release the person, with a possible extension of one to three days. Officials describe these measures as graded case handling and procedural regulation. In practice, they give discipline investigators more ways to switch and prolong physical control.
No court review or lawyer-initiated remedy accompanies the longer period. The National Supervision Commission serves as the highest investigative body and the authority approving the extra two months or a restarted clock. Extension stays inside the same vertical system. The amendment satisfies investigators' demand for more time, while a detained person who cannot see counsel bears the entire cost.
Criminal procedure begins after referral
At the end of an investigation, a supervision commission may impose an administrative sanction, recommend accountability measures, or close the matter. When it alleges a duty-related crime, it sends an indictment recommendation and the evidence to a procuratorate. Prosecutors first place a person still in liuzhi under criminal detention, which terminates liuzhi, and then decide under criminal procedure whether to arrest, grant bail, or impose residential surveillance. [1][3]
This transfer creates a sharp difference in rights between the two phases. Prosecutors and courts can examine charges, evidence, and sentence after referral, but reconstructing events inside liuzhi is difficult. Interrogation recordings, approval documents, and facility records were made and retained by the supervision commission. By the time defense counsel can inspect the case file, confessions and the evidentiary theory are already in place. [1][3]
The first case in 2017 demonstrated the speed of concentrated control. Liuzhi use then expanded rapidly. Safeguard Defenders estimated from official notices that roughly 26,000 people underwent liuzhi in 2023 and about 38,000 in 2024. Those sources use differing units, so the figures indicate scale rather than a precise census. [13][14]
The National Supervision Commission delivered its first special work report to the NPC Standing Committee in December 2024, presenting aggregated enforcement results. [11] Retrospective reporting cannot replace outside review of an individual detention. Liuzhi has statutes, forms, and successive approvals, yet the approver, investigator, and custodian of the record all belong to the same Party-state discipline machine. The CCP has legalized isolated investigation while excluding courts, lawyers, and the public from the phase that determines the course of the case.
Evidence boundaries and responsibility
The Supervision Law and its regulations establish detention conditions, approval levels, and statutory duration. They cannot prove that officials followed the procedure in every case. Reporting on the first Zhejiang case documents that pilot, not every detention site in China. External estimates drawn from public notices use differing units, so the figures in this article indicate scale rather than a precise census. [8][13][14]
Accounts of abuse, exhausting interrogation, and secret custody include testimony, research findings, and allegations in human rights reports. Individual records still require verification, but the CCP cannot dismiss the problem by pointing to the absence of a court verdict. Investigators control the facility, recordings, and approval documents while keeping lawyers out of the investigative phase. That institutional control is the reason independent verification remains so difficult. [10][12]
Sources: Supervision Law and the 2024 amendment [1][2]; implementing regulations [3]; rules on complaint handling [5]; discipline inspection and supervision rules [4]; CCDI work regulations [6]; pilot decision and Zhejiang pilot record [7][9]; report on the first liuzhi case [8]; National Supervision Commission 2024 report [11]; CECC criminal justice report [10]; Safeguard Defenders reviews [12][13]; Radio Free Asia explainer [14]; research by Ling Li and Junyang Wang [15][16].
What the available sources establish
The Supervision Law permits liuzhi only where investigators already hold partial evidence of serious duty-related violations, important issues remain, and one of four statutory circumstances applies; sub-provincial commissions need approval from the commission one level up.
The 2024 Supervision Law amendments added compulsory appearance, ordered availability, and protective custody and extended liuzhi in specified circumstances.
On 17 March 2017 the Shangcheng District supervision commission in Hangzhou opened China's first liuzhi case against Yu Jianjun, completed the investigation and transferred it for prosecution within 33 days; in December 2017 a court sentenced him to 15 years for embezzlement.
Compiling official disclosures, rights groups report about 26,000 people placed in liuzhi in 2023; media and rights-group estimates put the cumulative total since 2018 at roughly 200,000 and the 2024 figure at about 38,000, with inconsistent counting methods across years and releases.
Sources
Supervision Law of the People's Republic of China (2024 Amendment)primary-recordUnchecked
NPC Standing Committee Decision Amending the Supervision Lawprimary-recordLive
Regulations on Implementing the Supervision Law of the People's Republic of Chinaprimary-recordLive
Rules on Supervision and Discipline Enforcement Work of CPC Discipline Inspection Organsprimary-recordLive
Work Rules for Handling Complaints and Accusations by Discipline Inspection and Supervision Organsprimary-recordLive
Regulations on the Work of CPC Discipline Inspection Commissionsprimary-recordLive
NPC Standing Committee Decision on Piloting National Supervision System Reform in Beijing, Shanxi, and Zhejiangprimary-recordUnchecked
Inside China's First Liuzhi Case: How a Supervision Commission Exercised Its Investigative Powerinvestigative-reportingLive
Chronicle of Zhejiang's National Supervision System Reform Pilotgovernment-reportRedirected
CECC Report on China's Criminal Justice Systemgovernment-reportLive
NSC Report to the NPC Standing Committee on Rectifying Misconduct and Corruption Affecting the Publicprimary-recordUnchecked
Submission to UN Special Procedures on China's National Supervision Commission and Its Detention Tool Liuzhihuman-rights-reportLive
Enforced Disappearances in China: Update on Actors and Scale of Liuzhi Usehuman-rights-reportLive
EXPLAINED: How China Holds Officials in Secret, Solitary Detentioninvestigative-reportingLive
Anti-Corruption in a Party-State: Constitutional Implications of China's Supervisory Reformacademic-researchLive
The Political Limits of China's Anti-Corruption Reform: An Institutional Analysis of the New Supervision Commissionacademic-researchRedirected