Tuesday 23 June 2009

Launch of official complaint hotline proves too hot to handle

The mainland’s top prosecutorial body’s first hotline for the public to report violations of party discipline or law proved so popular when launched yesterday that it crashed.

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Guanyu said...

Launch of official complaint hotline proves too hot to handle

Ivan Zhai
23 June 2009

The mainland’s top prosecutorial body’s first hotline for the public to report violations of party discipline or law proved so popular when launched yesterday that it crashed.

The 24-hour hotline, “12309”, is so far available in 18 of the 31 provinces and autonomous regions, and a spokesman for the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said it would be available everywhere within six months.

He said people who dialled the hotline would be automatically transferred to prosecutorial departments in their province.

If they wanted to report cases in other regions, they simply had to add the appropriate area code.

An official in charge of the department’s reporting centre said the public could talk to operators directly during office hours and use recorder or fax after that. He said people should keep the password provided to them for further inquiries.

Meanwhile, the procuratorate also changed its reporting website address to www.12309.gov.cn saying it would be much easier for the public to remember.

The official promised that all online reports would be replied to and people who submitted their reports could check the progress of the investigation.

But the website was unstable yesterday afternoon as it struggled to cope with high numbers of users.

The spokesman admitted the website and the hotline were so busy they were suffering from a personnel shortage. He added that some reports online had not been submitted due to technical problems.

Aside from reports on official corruption, the spokesman said there had been reports of civil disputes and crime. Others had used the hotline as a consulting service.

“They asked for advice on how to deal with unsolved cases,” he said.

An operator with Henan People’s Procuratorate said calls were coming in at a rate of one every two minutes, according to the People’s Daily website. Some people used the service as a petition hotline, while operators with the procuratorate in Henan, Sichuan and Hainan said up to 80 per cent of calls concerned private disputes.

The hotline was a hot topic among internet users yesterday, with concerns that authorities could not deal with all the reports received.

According to the Guangdong People’s Procuratorate website, the public can even report “general illegal cases” besides official corruption and civil concerns.