Bribers targeted in fight against corruption

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-06 17:01

BEIJING: China's judiciary agencies have extended focus of corruption targets to bribe givers, as prosecutors expanded a blacklist of bribers to all industries to uproot corruption.

The blacklist database, covering the country's all bribers convicted by Chinese court since 1997 when an amendment to the Criminal Law took effect, was opened for public scrutiny earlier this month.

Individuals or organizations can refer to the blacklist of bribe cases, to see if their cooperation candidates have any record of bribery.

According to a regulation on the use of the database, the blacklist system aims to curb job-related crimes and business bribery.

"It intends to eradicate the hidden rule of power-for-money deal and prevent corruption by curbing bribe offering," it says.

Foreigners and international companies convicted of bribery by Chinese courts are also included in the database.

Earlier last month, the Shanghai procuratorate approved the arrest of four employees of the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd., including Stern Hu, an Australian citizen of Chinese origin and general manager of the company's Shanghai office, on charges of illegally obtaining business secrets and bribery.

An official with the job-related crime prevention department of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said it alarmed people who were thinking of offering bribes, as their names and acts would remain in the database and be exposed to the public. The record cannot be deleted or changed.

Free inquiry can be made in all levels of procuratorate across China with an ID card and a written application letter clarifying the aim of inquiry. The object of inquiry could be people or companies in any regions on the Chinese mainland since all blacklist databases form a national network.

Previously, most of these bribery databases in different regions were not connected and people have to travel or write inquiry letters for cross-provincial inquiries.

The regulation says procuratorates must reply inquirers within three days, including the time when a briber offered money, the sum, the time being convicted by courts and other related information about this briber, who could be the inquirer's cooperation candidates.

Judiciary organizations should not be involved in the handling of the result of inquiry, it says.

Prof. Huang Zongliang of Peking University told Xinhua: "It takes two to make a quarrel. Corruption cannot be wiped out if bribers are always there to lure."

Huang said, "Previously, people taking bribes had always been apriority target in corruption fighting as bribe takers were mostly powerful people or officials who had influence. However, bribe offering should be severely punished as well."

"Money and power are easily colluding with each other, and the crackdown upon bribers is an important part of fighting corruption," said Huang, who gave a lecture in 2004 on capability building and corruption fighting of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) to the 25-member Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, the highest-ranking Party officials.

The SPP initiated the blacklist in January 2006 which covered bribers in five sectors including construction, finance, medical service, education and government procurement.

The list has been extended to bribers of all industries after September 1 as bribery is common in sectors such as land expropriation, housing relocation, urban law enforcement, power grid restructuring, energy development and rural construction.

The urban construction sector has always been vulnerable to bribery.

The SPP said Thursday that bribery in urban construction projects accounted for nearly 40 percent of all the 6,277 business bribery cases Chinese prosecutors dealt with in the first six months, which involved 918 million yuan (US$134 million) in total.

More than 77 percent of the cases were charged with "taking bribes" and 19 percent with "paying bribes," the SPP said.