Closing The Graft Gap

Over the past decade, more than 100 provincial and ministry-level officials across China have been investigated -- and sometimes convicted. The number of department directors, bureau chiefs and county leaders charged with corruption has been even higher.

As China's anti-corruption campaign gathers force day by day, occasionally punctuated by news of senior officials falling from grace, the public has been given a general impression of a nation infected with more graft than ever before.

Thus, a gap between the intensity of the campaign and the expectations of the public has opened – and should not be ignored. So as one who's been on the front lines of the fight against corruption for many years, I feel an urgent need to explain what's going on.

At the same time, I feel compelled to advocate two paths for improving the judicial system's ability to battle corruption: setting up a system for protecting informants and stained witnesses, and reviewing the procuratorate work quota process.

Protecting Informants

Statistics detailing the corruption and bribery caseload handled by the nation's procuratorates in recent years have shown that 80 percent of all case leads originated with reports filed by citizens. Indeed, reports filed by individuals far outstrip those generated by institutions where crimes may have been committed.

Twenty years ago, leads from work units, or employers, accounted for more than 40 percent of the cases. But in 2009, they accounted for less than 5 percent of the leads for cases handled by the Second Branch of the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate, including leads from the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

But the decline in work unit reports has led to a decline in the quality of the information. That's because each work unit report is filed with the Anti-Corruption Bureau only after undergoing an intitial screening, which makes the bureau's work easier by providing information that forms a solid basis for investigation.

In contrast, reports made by individuals are less workable. One problem is that informants often use aliases when signing reports, seldom using their real names. Why? To a large extent, it's because informants fear retaliation and can't receive proper protection. So they try to hide behind an alias.

This sort of fear could be addressed by ensuring protection for informants, or at least making sure they can defend themselves if targeted by vengeance-seeking attackers.

China's criminal law and related judicial interpretations should be refined. Currently, harassment and retaliatory acts are subjects of only two articles: Article 254, which concerns state agency workers who abuse their authority by retaliating against or framing accusers, petitioners, critics or informants in the name of official business; and Article 255, which concerns leaders of companies, enterprises, institutions, offices, or other organizations who harass or seek to retaliate against those accountants or statisticians who simply perform their duties according to law.

These articles fail to qualify behavior that constitutes harassment and revenge. And regarding Article 254, the Supreme People's Court has set stringent standards for initiating such trials or investigations: The behavior must have led to serious consequences such as "suicide, self-mutilation, serious injury, death, or mental harm to an accuser, petitioner, critics, informant, or close relatives."