A judicial interpretation redefining the crimes of employment of child laborers for dangerous work, the smuggling of wastes and five other criminal accusations was jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate Thursday.

The redefinition of charges is based on the latest amendments to China's Criminal Law by the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress, said Ma Dong, an official with the Supreme People's Court.

Aiming for illegal profits, some enterprises have hired child laborers to work high above or under the ground or in other hazardous environments, legal experts said.

Employers who hire laborers under the age 16 to do excessively heavy physical jobs or work under harmful environments would be sentenced to three to seven years of imprisonment along with fines, according to the amendments.

Some of the changes have widened the sphere of application of related articles of the criminal law, Ma explained.

For example, the crime of smuggling solid wastes has been turned into the charge of smuggling wastes. The new definition enlarges the scope of smuggled wastes to include liquid and gas, as well as solids, Ma said.

According to the amended law, smugglers of wastes mainly imported from abroad would be fined and imprisoned for less than five years. For those with more serious crimes, imprisonment would exceed five years.

The charges of illegal logging and destruction of major state-protected plants and the illegal purchase, transport, processing and sale of major state-protected plants and their products were likewise amended. The accusation formerly focused on the illegal logging and destruction of precious trees, according to the interpretation.

The nation's judicial departments should promulgate relative articles after the top legislative body has conducted amendments to current Criminal Law, said Chen Xingliang, a law professor with Peking University.

(China Daily August 22, 2003)