Altogether 39 judicial workers in Chinese courts were given administrative disciplinary punishment during the first 10 months of 2003 for unlawfully extending the period of a suspect's detention, said a senior official with the Supreme People's Court Monday.

Shao Wenhong, deputy director of the Research Bureau under the Supreme People's Court, released the information on Monday, adding that by the end of November 2003, all the 1,967 unlawful prolonged detention cases that emerged before this July in the country's judicial system had been redressed.

"And efforts to resolve the illegal prolonged detention cases emerging since this August are now taken. To date, about 1,835 unlawful extended custody cases that occurred since August and involved 2,906 people have also been reviewed and solved. But still 237 of these cases remained unsolved," said Shao.

She noted that the remaining unlawful prolonged custody cases in the judicial system would be all redressed by the end of this year.

Shen Deyong, vice president of the Supreme People's Court, saidthat although the past cases of unlawful prolonged custody have been intensively reviewed, some problems still exist and a long-term supervisory system should be set up for preventing new such cases.

He said that with China's rapid economic and social development,some new criminal cases and economic crimes emerged, which made trials more difficult to carry out and therefore, the holding criminal suspects longer than the legal time limit was more likely.

He urged the country's judicial workers to keep up with new situations and build a fine knowledge structure, in a bid to deal with new cases easily.

Shen also blamed the large number of unlawful prolonged custodycases on the lack of relevant regulations and laws to regulate thebehaviors of law enforcement personnel.

The Supreme People's Court on Monday released a notice to public, saying that new rules have been worked out and conveyed tothe courts at all levels, in an attempt to prevent new unlawful prolonged custody of criminal suspects.

The new rules stipulate that if enough evidence cannot be collected within the legal time limit, law enforcement officials cannot suspend the case but should set free the criminal suspects within the time limit. And any judicial workers who abuse their power and cause a criminal suspect's detention to be illegally extended must bear disciplinary or criminal responsibility.

On Nov. 25, the Supreme People's Procuratorate likely announcedsome new regulations to prevent unlawful prolonged custody of criminal suspects. It also said that all the prolonged detention cases in the procurator sector had been redressed by July 21.

It occurred sometimes that criminal suspects are held at detention centers until the court made its final verdict. This meant that the police, public prosecutors and judges could all illegally hold a suspect in custody for longer than allowed.

The legal period of custody of criminal suspects ranges from 14days to six-and-a-half-months from the arrest to the trial, according to China's Criminal Procedure Law.

(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2003)