Supreme Law: Severely punish crimes involving safety production qualification certificates, and those who deserve heavy punishment will be sentenced according to law.
In a case involving the forgery of state authority documents and seals, the court imposed penalties close to the maximum sentence specified by law and imposed a high fine simultaneously, highlighting its attitude of severely punishing such crimes.
On December 24th, the Supreme Court released typical cases of law enforcement against fake safety production certificates. The court explained that the issue of fake safety production certificates has buried major hidden dangers to enterprise production and public safety. Some lawbreakers are driven by profit, take risks, and even form a cross-provincial criminal chain of falsifying, altering, buying and selling safety production certificates, seriously disrupting safety production order, endangering public safety, and infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of the people.
Pengpai News noted that on July 8th, 2024, the Supreme Court issued the “Notice on Further Strengthening Criminal Justice in Cases of Falsification of Safety Production Credentials”, requiring courts at all levels to severely punish crimes related to fake safety production certificates and contain safety production risks at their source.
The Supreme Court stated that in terms of severe punishment targets, it will firmly impose severe punishment on the main perpetrators of crimes such as forging, altering or selling special (equipment) operator licenses, on personnel and units that seriously endanger people’s lives and property by knowingly buying and using fakes, as well as on operators of fake government websites, fake verification Apps, and fake certificate information publishing and marketing platforms. It will also impose severe punishment on the legal representatives, actual controllers or heads of training institutions that sell or help candidates obtain safety production certificates through cheating.
In terms of identification of severe circumstances, for criminals who commit crimes such as forging, altering or trading state authority documents and seals on a large scale and for a long time, with special types of forged documents, a large number, and great harm, they will be legally recognized as “severe circumstances” to achieve the compatibility of crime, responsibility, and punishment.
In terms of economic sanctions, the court not only pursues all the illegal gains of criminals in accordance with law but also pays more attention to giving full play to the role of property punishment, practically increasing the economic sanctions against criminals, depriving or weakening their economic ability to re-commit crimes in order to better realize the deterrent, educational, and preventive functions of punishment.
“In recent years, the crime of falsifying safety production certificates has shown an industrialized and chained trend,” said the Supreme Court. When trying such cases, the people’s courts focus on both attacking the source and the market, carefully examining the source and destination of fake certificates, the flow of illegal profit funds, and the relationship network and hierarchy of the involved personnel. They investigate the crimes of each link in the “production, supply and marketing” chain, ensuring a full chain strike against crimes such as certificate falsification, sale, purchase, and use of safety production certificates, as well as fake verification, assessment, and marketing that arise from them.
For example, the Sun Strong and Han Ping case involves a source crime that falsifies special operation certificates through establishing false official websites and webpages. The case shows that Sun Strong instructed others to set up multiple false official websites and webpages. From September 2022 to May 2023, he maintained and operated these websites, issued authorization points to subordinates, provided login accounts to others in partnership with others to falsify more than 18,700 construction special operation licenses, special operation licenses for special equipment operators. As a subordinate of Sun Strong, Han Ping used authorization points obtained from Sun Strong to log in to these websites and falsify more than 10,200 electronic documents with others. In order to convert these falsified electronic certificates into physical ones, Han Ping also falsified 57 official seals of state agencies.
The court’s effective judgment held that Sun Strong and Han Ping worked together with others to falsify state authority documents. Han Ping also falsified state agency seals. Their actions violated the public trust and management order of state authority documents and seals. Both Sun Strong and Han Ping were convicted of falsifying state authority documents crimes. Their criminal acts were serious and they should be punished accordingly. During the operation period of the websites involved in this case Sun Strong provided login accounts and authorization points to subordinates at a cost while providing login accounts to subordinates at their requests based on their requirements for subordinates at lower levels in order to form a clear hierarchical criminal chain with Sun Strong at the top of this criminal chain playing a major role in all crimes committed by subordinates through these websites should be punished accordingly. Han Ping not only directly implemented the act of falsifying state authority documents after obtaining authorization points from Sun Strong but also sold authorization points to subordinates at lower levels playing a major role in all crimes committed by himself as well as subordinates at lower levels while actively implementing falsification of official seals in order to realize his illegal purpose of converting falsified electronic licenses into physical ones. Therefore Sun Strong was sentenced to nine years in prison for falsifying state authority documents crime fined RMB 1 million while Han Ping was sentenced to eight years and six months in prison for falsifying state authority documents crime fine RMB 9 million with an order for them to continue withdrawing their illegal gains. The issue of fake safety production certificates is an invisible killer for safety production which poses potential threats to normal enterprise production activities as well as people’s lives and property safety. When elucidating the typical significance of this case the Supreme Court pointed out that Sun Strong achieved his illegal purpose by working with other involved personnel to set up multiple fake government websites that can realize the function of falsifying safety production certificates and constantly expanded his criminal network by issuing authorization points providing login accounts etc.. The number of acquired safety production certificates covering multiple high-risk operating areas reached tens of thousands without corresponding qualifications people pose major risks and hidden dangers to corporate safety production social harm is great. Therefore based on their actions such as falsifying state authority documents means scale duration types and quantity of falsified documents seals as well as social harm degree the court identified Sun Strong and Han Ping’s criminal circumstances as serious imposed penalties close to statutory maximum sentences with high fines imposed simultaneously ordered them to continue withdrawing their ill-gotten gains highlighting the court’s clear attitude towards severely punishing such crimes in accordance with law fully realizing the punishment deterrence and educational functions of punishment.
