China will strengthen its protection of informants as a growing
number are facing threats by officials, a senior official with the
Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said.
The measures will include the setting up of a unified reporting
and hotline website nationwide by the end of the year.
To improve efficiency in dealing with corruption reports,
appraisal groups made up of officials from the reporting centers of
procuratorates, and the anti-corruption and dereliction inspection
sectors will be established at various levels, Bai Huimin, deputy
director of the reporting affairs department of the SPP, said.
"We will thoroughly investigate cases of retaliation against
informants," Bai was quoted by Procuratorate Daily as
saying on Monday.
"We will also severely punish officials disclosing the content
of reports. A 'responsibility-seeking system' will be
introduced."
A better rewards system for informants will also be introduced
soon to encourage more people to come forward.
Data show that 60 percent of nearly 200,000 cases uncovered by
the procuratorates each year originate from tip-offs by members of
the public.
However, the number of informants or witnesses killed or
seriously injured has increased from less than 500 annually in the
1990s to more than 1,200 in recent years.
Currently, informants can submit an online report by logging on
to the SPP's official website at: http://jubao.spp.gov.cn.
The informant will automatically get a password, which he or she
can use later to check progress on the report.
"The Internet has become a popular way to submit reports as it
is much more convenient than mailing letters, phoning or visiting
in person a procuratorate," Bai said
The Zheng Dashui bribery case in 2005 was the first to be
uncovered by the procuratorates through an online tip-off.
A court in east China's Jiangsu Province sentenced Zheng to
seven years' imprisonment and confiscated property valued at
270,000 yuan ($35,000).
To date, more than half of more than 3,000 procuratorates have
online reporting of cases.
"By further optimizing Internet resources, reports will first
enter the highest procuratorate's network, then we will divulge the
information to the provinces involved and supervise the
investigations," Bai said.
Experts have called for stronger laws to protect informants and
witnesses.
"Besides some reference in the Criminal Procedure Law and a few
policies introduced earlier by the SPP, we don't have a specific
law," Wu Danhong, a professor with Chinese University of Politics
and Law, told China Daily.
Without such a law, judicial departments have to independently
protect informants.
"If all the resources of judicial departments can be pooled, the
business of protecting informants and witnesses could be improved,"
Wu said.
(China Daily?September 25, 2007)