By Xinhua
Beijing : The work reports by China’s top judge Xiao Yang and top presecutor Jia Chunwang Monday said that even though the country has intensified its campaign against corruption, the overall situation remains grave.
The work report of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s highest agency responsible for prosecution, said 35 officials at the provincial level, 930 at the municipal level and nearly 14,000 at the county level were investigated for embezzlement, bribery and misappropriation of public funds in the past five years.
Supreme People’s Court work report, submitted by Chief Justice Yang, said Chinese courts tried 120,000 cases of embezzlement, bribery and dereliction of duty in the past five years, up 12.5 percent from previous years.
Both Yang and Chunwang vowed that special efforts would be made to build a clean and honest judge and procurator contingent and no leniency would be shown to judicial workers who abuse their power. Corrupt judges and procurators will be “severely dealt with”, the reports said.
In recent past, China has seen many high profile corruption cases. One of the most striking cases was of Zheng Xiaoyu, former director of China’s State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), who was executed in July. Zheng was found guilty of taking 6.49 million yuan ($91,000) in bribes.
Another case was of former Shanghai communist party chief Chen Liangyu, who has been dismissed from all government posts and remains in jail awaiting trial.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in his work report last week that “We will attach even greater importance to combating corruption and encouraging integrity.”