How to improve the ability of handling public opinion?

Improve the ability to effectively handle public opinion

Jingchu Net News (Hubei Daily) Xu Hanming

Public opinion is a concentrated expression of the public's views on recent events and problems, which has the characteristics of novelty, subjectivity, non-compulsion, openness and variability, and often presents the stages of germination, warming up, hype "blowout", continuous hype and cooling down. It reflects the public's opinions and views on social problems and social development, and is a barometer of social harmony and stability. Especially in today's society with highly developed information technology, traditional media means are sharply challenged by modern networks, and public opinion has increasingly become an important way for the public to understand society and grasp reality. The media that spread public opinion has increasingly become an important platform for our governance. Therefore, we must deeply understand the major changes in the law enforcement environment, actively adapt to the objective requirements of social progress, especially the development of information technology, and start from the aspects of law enforcement concepts, law enforcement mechanisms and law enforcement methods. Effectively strengthen the judgment, response and application of public opinion, and enhance the ability of procuratorial organs to resolve social contradictions and promote social harmony and stability.

Change the concept of law enforcement and correctly understand the significance of public opinion to judicial work

With the development of information technology, information networking has brought uncontrollable and highly free flow of information. The public's right to freedom of speech and the media's right to freedom of the press are intertwined, which makes any event, including law enforcement and judicial cases, likely to be exposed, and public opinion has become an important and relatively independent social force. As far as procuratorial work is concerned, public opinion should check the situation. True public opinion is conducive to grasping public opinion, listening to people's voices, resolving people's grievances and gathering people's wisdom, and plays a very important role in correctly investigating and handling duty crimes, accusing crimes, strengthening legal supervision, maintaining fairness and justice, and promoting the construction of socialist rule of law. However, it should not be ignored that due to the asymmetric information of the public about the facts of the case, the procuratorial organs' investigation and handling of duty crimes, examination and approval of arrests, accusation of crimes, and the legal supervision of criminal trials and civil administrative litigation activities, especially the existence of public opinion containing a lot of false information, some irrational public opinions involved in the case spread rapidly through online media and are infinitely amplified, which often mislead the public's psychological, emotional and behavioral choices and bring undue pressure and interference to the normal handling activities of judicial organs.

How to actively deal with and properly handle online public opinion and give full play to the functions of procuratorial organs in punishing crimes, safeguarding people's rights and interests, safeguarding social fairness and justice, maintaining social harmony and stability, and safeguarding the unified and correct implementation of the Constitution and laws? First of all, we should change the traditional law enforcement concept, establish a new law enforcement concept of "rationality, peace, civilization and standardization", turn the pressure of public opinion into the driving force to improve case handling, develop a good habit of resisting "pressure" and "interference" in the information society and the explosion of public opinion, be good at grasping, guiding and utilizing public opinion, build a bridge between judicial organs and the public, and enhance social fairness and interference. Secondly, we should deeply understand the double-edged sword function of public opinion, effectively strengthen the guidance of public opinion, respond to public concerns in a timely manner, ease public sentiment, actively guide the public to cultivate the rule of law psychology, develop the rule of law thinking, and consciously safeguard the rule of law order. Finally, it is necessary to strengthen the organization and leadership of public opinion work, establish and improve the working mechanism of public opinion disposal, and improve the ability and level of unified leadership, rapid response, comprehensive coordination, active guidance and scientific disposal.

Strengthen the construction of law enforcement mechanism and improve the ability to effectively handle public opinion.

In the handling of public opinion related to inspection, it is necessary to clarify the direction, grasp the key points, strengthen the construction of public opinion handling mechanism, effectively improve the ability to effectively deal with and properly handle public opinion related to inspection, and promote the legalization, standardization and institutionalization of public opinion handling.

The first is to establish an early warning and forecasting mechanism. After the occurrence of public opinion, it is necessary to start relevant emergency plans, effectively coordinate the integrated response of relevant departments and internal institutions, and form a unified, efficient and authoritative response organization system. First of all, the attorney general is in front of the command and coordination. When dealing with the public opinion related to inspection, the procurator-general should command from the front, grasp the public opinion information in time, personally deploy, make decisive decisions, actively win the support of all parties, and strive for coordinated action. Secondly, strengthen public opinion monitoring and research. It is necessary to pay close attention to the dynamics of public opinion, strengthen the collection of intelligence information and online public opinion, find and understand sensitive information that may lead to the intensification of public opinion in time, objectively evaluate the development trend of public opinion, and provide intellectual support for scientific decision-making and effective response to public opinion disposal related to inspections. Third, improve the pre-plan work measures. It is necessary to clarify the key work measures such as organization and leadership, rapid response, disposal methods and coping strategies to deal with public opinion, and ensure the rapid, accurate and practical implementation of the plan.

The second is to establish a synchronous start-up mechanism. Respond to public concerns in a timely manner, accurately disclose the case, control key information sources, strengthen interpretation and reasoning, answer questions, seize the commanding heights of public opinion, and win the dominance of public opinion; Adhere to the "two-wheel drive", pay attention to the guidance of public opinion, organize positive comments on the internet, limit negative comments, make public opinion develop in the direction of rationality and rule of law, and pay attention to solving realistic behaviors that may affect social stability; Adhere to follow-up and guidance, pay close attention to the situation of public opinion, comprehensively grasp the development trend of public opinion, and firmly grasp the initiative of public opinion guidance.

The third is to establish a departmental linkage mechanism. Department linkage. In case of patrol related public opinion, all localities should consult with news, propaganda, communication management, public security organs and other departments in a timely manner and respond according to the emergency response plan. Up and down linkage. In view of the cross-regional and anonymous characteristics of online virtual society, we should give full play to the advantages of procuratorial integration mechanism, establish a communication mechanism between procuratorial organs at higher and lower levels, timely inform public opinion information, strengthen guidance and supervision, and form a joint force to deal with it. Internal contact. The internal organs and departments of procuratorial organs should strengthen communication and coordination in dealing with public opinion, and truly share information, exchange information, perform their duties and support and cooperate.

The fourth is to establish an accountability evaluation mechanism. Clarify the discipline of publicity and reporting. The formulation, organization and implementation of the public opinion handling work plan must be approved by legal procedures before it can be organized and implemented. Without approval, they shall not be interviewed without authorization, and shall not provide interview materials to the media or disclose relevant information on the Internet without authorization; Get the support of the competent news department, standardize the media's reports on judicial cases, let the media supervise the judiciary without interfering with it, and prevent cases from being improperly hyped and affecting fair handling; Punish the behavior of spreading rumors and causing troubles according to law, strengthen the protection of citizens' right to freedom of speech, and effectively guarantee the full exercise of citizens' political, economic, cultural and social rights. At the same time, effectively strengthen the management of bad comments and behaviors on the Internet, and transfer relevant law enforcement departments and personnel who spread rumors, confuse people and cause serious incidents on the Internet to the competent authorities for investigation and punishment according to law, and effectively safeguard social harmony and stability; Respond to the public's doubts in a timely manner, face up to the shortcomings, flaws and even misjudged cases in law enforcement, and respond frankly. If it should be corrected according to law, it should be resolutely corrected and must not be concealed from the public; The accountability should be accountable according to the law and regulations, and the public's doubts should be eliminated in time.

Standardize law enforcement methods to ensure that procuratorial organs independently exercise procuratorial power according to law.

In the face of public opinion related to inspection, it is necessary to effectively protect the people's right to know, participate, express and supervise, attach great importance to public concern, seize the opportunity, correctly grasp the "four theories" mechanism, and guide public opinion, that is, it is appropriate to say it rather than say it, sooner rather than later, to say it yourself rather than others, and to take the initiative rather than passively. It is necessary to stress the timing and strategy of handling public opinion related to inspection, pay attention to releasing authoritative information before public opinion causes emergencies, guide the public with correct information, resist false information with real information, minimize the space for malicious speculation, eliminate public doubts and guesses to the maximum extent, and effectively win the initiative.

Correctly handle the relationship between accepting supervision by public opinion and independently exercising procuratorial power according to law. For cases of public concern being handled, we should not only treat and accept the supervision of public opinion with an open, inclusive, open-minded and frank attitude, but also fully absorb the reasonable elements of public opinion, be free from the influence of public opinion, insist on handling cases independently according to law, and ensure objective and fair handling.

First, fully respect social conditions and public opinion. For the reasonable components of social conditions and public opinion, we should listen to public opinions carefully according to the existing legal norms and disclose the results to the public in time; The procuratorial organs should face up to the problem of judicial mistakes reflected by social conditions and public opinion, deal with it according to law, and promote the procuratorial organs to be fair, honest, civilized and standardized in law enforcement.

The second is to effectively guide social conditions and public opinion. It is necessary to observe calmly, analyze correctly, respond positively, effectively guide social conditions and public opinion, and correct and prevent the bad tendency of one-sided catering. Procuratorial organs must attach importance to facts and evidence when releasing information on law enforcement and handling cases to the society. The improper demands of a few members of society should be properly rejected according to law, and the improper practices of catering to the demands of some members of society at the expense of legal dignity and authority should be corrected and prevented.

The third is to correctly handle the false elements in public opinion. As far as some people's grievances caused by information asymmetry are concerned, they contain some false elements. As long as they are not deliberately fabricated or fabricated false facts to hinder judicial activities, law enforcement and judicial organs should generally not pursue the legal responsibilities of relevant personnel, but should adopt the methods of education, reasoning, persuasion and resolution to urge them to eliminate misunderstandings and then abide by the law and protect the law. If a few people with ulterior motives use public opinion to create troubles or social events, which seriously interfere with judicial activities and undermine the normal working order, educational order, people's living order and social management order of organs, schools, enterprises and society, law enforcement and judicial organs will deal with them according to law, and if a few leaders violate criminal laws and regulations, they will be brought to justice.

The fourth is to properly handle the problem of reasonable and illegal public opinion. Because our country is in the period of social transformation, there are some loopholes in the system and mechanism, and the legislation is relatively backward, and there are some reasonable phenomena in the real society. For social demands that can't be solved for a while or can't be followed within the existing legal framework, law enforcement and judicial organs should do a good job in explaining to the public, strive for understanding and support, and ask the Political and Legal Committee of the Party Committee to coordinate and deal with them when necessary, and strive to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the public, promote people's all-round development and promote harmony without violating the basic spirit of the law. (The author is the executive deputy procurator-general of the Provincial People's Procuratorate)