China corruption convictions up 30 percent in five years: top prosecutor News
China corruption convictions up 30 percent in five years: top prosecutor

[JURIST] Chinese prosecutors increased the number of corruption convictions against government officials by 30 percent in the past five years, according to a Monday report by Chinese Procurator-General Jia Chunwang [official profile, in Chinese] at the First Session of the 11th National People's Congress. Jia, who has headed the Supreme People's Procuratorate [official website, in Chinese] since 2003, said that prosecutors investigated 209,487 and convicted 116,627 individuals for corruption since 2003. Jia also highlighted other accomplishments, including increased prosecutorial discretion in not issuing arrest warrants or indictments for certain minor offenses.

China has recently taken a hard line on corruption, punishing several officials with lengthy prison terms and the death penalty [JURIST report]. In January, the Communist Party of China [official backgrounder] issued a list of "10 taboos" [JURIST report] for public officials as part of the government's attempt to fight corruption ahead of a reshuffling of provincial leadership posts. In December, a former prosecutor received a suspended death sentence [JURIST report] after being convicted of accepting bribes and embezzling money. Last September, a former official of the Agricultural Bank of China was executed [JURIST report] for taking bribes and embezzling nearly $2 million. AFP has more. Xinhua has local coverage, in Chinese.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Bank of England granted political independence

On May 6, 1997, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced that the Bank of England would be granted political independence for the first time in the three-hundred year history of the Bank. This policy was statutized in the subsequent Bank of England Act of 1998 gave the Bank independent control of British monetary policy effective June 1, 1998. Read the Bank of England Act of 1998.

Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese laborers from US

On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States and prohibiting courts from bestowing US citizenship on Chinese. Connecticut Senator Joseph Hawley spoke out against the Act in these words: Let the proposed statue be read 100 years hence, dug out of the dust of ages and forgotten as it will be except for a line of sneer by some historian, and ask the young man not well read in the history of this country what was the reason for excluding these men and he would not be able to find it in the law. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its successors were abolished in 1943 at the insistence of President Franklin Roosevelt.