China sentences six corrupt senior officials last year

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, March 11, 2004

China sentences six corrupt senior officials last year

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A total of six former ministerial-level officials were sentenced on charges of job-related crimes last year, and China's chief justice and procuratorate-general both pledged Wednesday to intensify efforts to crack down on corrupt officials according to law.

The six former high-ranking officials included three former provincial governor or deputy governors, one former vice chairman of a provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), one former president of a provincial higher court, and the former president of the China Construction Bank.

The penalties on them range from death sentence with a reprieve, life imprisonment, to 12 and 15 years behind bars, according to previous reports.

They were among of a group of 537 government workers at country level sentenced on the same charges last year, said Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court.

The courts of the country handled a total of 22,986 cases involving government workers' job-related crimes last year, Xiao said in his report on the Supreme Court's work at the annual session of the National People's Congress, the Chinese version of parliament.

"Any judge who abuses his power for bribes will be dismissed from the judicial ranking, and lawbreakers will be punished according to law," he said.

The fight against corruption was intensified this year. In the latest case last month, former deputy governor of Anhui Province Wang Huaizhong was executed for accepting more than 5 million yuan of bribes and another 4.8 million yuan of assets which he could not offer legal claim.

Within the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), six former ministerial-level officials were also punished by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. What awaits them is punishment according to law.

Procurator-General Jia Chunwang said in his report to the parliament Wednesday that 39,562 job-related cases were prosecuted last year, involving 43,490 suspects, and 4.3 billion yuan of economic losses were recovered.

The procuratorial organ "is determined to strike hard against corruption in law-enforcement and judicial areas," said Jia, adding that last year 9,720 law-enforcement and judicial workers were investigated as suspects who took bribes and bent the law to serve friends or relatives.

"While redoubling the efforts to fight job-related crimes this year, procuratorates at all levels will focus on investigation into graft cases involving government officials, administrative law-enforcement personnel and the judiciary," the procuratorate-general stressed.

Corruption remains a top concern for many Chinese. China's leadership has been aware of the situation. Premier WenJiabao acknowledged in his government work report to the parliament that "it would be an arduous task for the government to rectify itself and fight corruption."

"Corruption still remains a major problem and the seedbed and conditions apt to lead to corruption still exist in China," said Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee at meeting of the CPC discipline watchdog in February last year.

Official statistics show that from 1992 to 1997, a total of 669,300 CPC members were punished for corruption, and the number rose to 846,150 in 1998-2002, a hefty increase of 26.4 percent.

The CPC published its first ever internal supervision regulations earlier this year to intensify the anti-graft campaign. The 47-article, 10,000-word Regulations of Internal Supervision of the Communist Party of China (Trial) put all the 68 million Party members under public supervision.

"The promulgation of the regulations means the Party has decided to base its anti-corruption efforts on stringent disciplinary rules rather than the political will of leaders," said Li Yongzhong, a research fellow for the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection who participated in the 13-year drafting process.

Gao Zongze, president of the All-China Lawyers Association, said the regulations stressed supervision over leaders at all levels by ordinary CPC members, non-Party members and the media, and that has touched the kernel of the anti-corruption endeavor.

Legislators and members of the CPPCC National Committee, usually critical of the reports by the Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate, agreed that China still has a long way to go in the fight against corruption.

"The fight (against corruption) has been intensified over the years and corruption has been checked to some extent," said Zuo Lianbi, member of the CPPCC National Committee and an official with the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. "But itis equally undeniable that the anti-corruption situation is still quite grave in some places and sectors."

Ji Jianhong, a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee, said the most important task is to deepen institutional reforms so as to root out the seedbed of corruption.

Some foreign diplomats in Beijing who have followed the parliamentary session said what China has done so far is "commendable."

"I think what the Chinese government has taken up for fighting against corruption is commendable," said David C. Saviye, Zambian ambassador to China. "China's leadership has put forward the concept of 'putting people first.' If the concept could really be instilled in officials' thought, corruption would be surely overcome."

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