More than 20,000 corruption cases were investigated in the first
six months of this year, a senior official confirmed at a meeting
of chief prosecutors from around China.
Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate Jia
Chunwang said 24,247 people were being questioned for 21,164
"job-related criminal cases," about 4 percent involving more than 1
million yuan (US$120,000) in bribes.
He said 713 cases involved 1 million yuan (US$ 120,000) or
above, up 6.9 percent over the same period last year.
Some 1,690 of those under investigation were officials of county
magistrate or higher levels, he said.
Since the beginning of the year, procuratorates at various
levels have tightened up legal supervision, which has had results,
Jia said.
Corruption has been brought under the spotlight once again with
a chief discipline inspector in central China's Hunan Province
being linked to economic crimes last month.
The case, involving Luo Ziguang, secretary of the Loudi
Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC
(Communist Party of China), is being seen as a signal that
corruption has entered the supervising system itself.
Shao Daosheng, a special researcher of the Central Commission
for the Discipline Inspection of the CPC, said the country's
anti-corruption departments and the Party's discipline inspection
branches had become major targets for investigation.
In another case, the Beijing High People's Court rejected an
appeal from a provincial official who was charged with taking
bribes last week.
The court held up the first ruling to convict Liu Fangren -- the
former Party Secretary of Guizhou Province in Southwest China.
The court said Liu had misused his power to seek illegal benefit
and committed the crime of bribery.
Court investigations found Liu had taken bribes on 22 separate
occasions totalling 6.77 million yuan (US$ 820,000) between March
1995 and February 2002.
All the cash was pocketed when he was secretary of the CPC
Guizhou Provincial Committee and the chairman of the Standing
Committee of the Guizhou Provincial People's Congress.
Jia called for more effort to build clean and just procuratorial
forces and improve their quality.
He also said effective measures should be taken to set up a
restraint mechanism among procuratorial officials between the upper
and lower levels as well as among procurators and officials in
other government departments.
(China Daily August 9, 2004)
