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Top Law-officer Supports Criminal Penalty for "Sexual Bribery"
China's deputy procurator-general Zhao Dengju proposed Friday, December 15, to amend the existing criminal law, to regard "sexual bribery" as a crime which should be severely punished.
The proposal by the deputy procurator-general was the first time a top judicial organization has suggested establishing a punishment for the special kind of bribery, which is nevertheless common throughout the country.
In most of the recent bribery cases involving high-ranking officials, such as former vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee Cheng Kejie and former vice governor of Jiangxi Province Hu Changqing, they had improper affairs with women or even took concubines for their sexual pleasure, said Zhao who works with the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
"'Sexual bribery' is a wicked and dangerous means of corrupting high-ranking officials," said Zhao who claimed that bribery of officials through trade of sex services is always done for illicit benefits.
Nationwide media have reported lately that more and more criminal cases in China involve sex for benefits.
The existing criminal code stipulates that bribery refers to providing monetary or other material interests, including various kinds of kickbacks or commissions, to officials for gaining illegal benefits.
However, bribery related to sex service still remains a legal loophole.
Some law experts said that "sexual bribery" can be even more powerful than monetary and material bribes, and has effects that other forms of bribery don't have.
The experts argued that the inclusion of "sexual bribery" as a crime is urgently needed in the fight against corruption and the drive to build a clean and honest government.
"Non-monetary and non-material interests" have already been included in the punishment of bribery in many European and North American countries as well as other Asian ones.
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