381 judges, court staff caught in China for misusing power

A total of 381 judges and court staff were caught in China for misusing power last year, 101 of whom were prosecuted under a campaign to "eradicate the black sheep" from the judiciary.
"Some judges and court staff showed bureaucracy at work and enjoyed privileges. They were indifferent to litigants and some even took bribes and bent the law for personal ends. People are angry with them," Chief Justice Zhou Qiang said in his annual report to the National People's Congress today.
A total of 381 judges and court staff were caught misusing their power and violating disciplines and laws, Zhou said.

In June, three judges and a discipline official with a Shanghai court were found to have solicited prostitutes by a netizen who released a video footage on the Internet highlighting the corruption in Chinese judiciary.
The Supreme People's Court (SPC) issued a strong-worded statement, accusing them of tarring the image of the nation's judges and scarring judicial credibility. They were dismissed later, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Last month, SPC official Liu Yong was suspected of taking bribes of over USD 330,000 in exchange for intervening in trials. Liu was transferred to judicial organs and related departments have decided to expel him from public office.

Zhou also noted that some courts were not efficient and delivered wrong verdicts, which damaged the interests of litigants and credibility of the court.

In his report, Procurator-General Cao Jianming said 210 prosecutors were punished in 2013 for violating laws and regulations, as part of an ongoing campaign to "eradicate the black sheep" from among the judicial staff.
Twenty six of them had already faced criminal charges, he told NPC. The offenders had been publicly named and shamed to "sound the alarm" for their fellow prosecutors, Cao said.
China is in the middle of an anti-corruption campaign, which targeted both "tigers and flies", referring to high and low ranking corrupt officials.

Cao said procuratorates last year investigated 2,871 public servants at county levels and above in 2,581 cases of graft, bribery, and embezzlement of public funds involving more than USD 1.63 lakhs.
In his report Chief Justice Zhou said about 45,000 trial proceedings were published through media, including social media, last year.
The most prominent case was the trial of disgraced Communist Party leader Bo Xilai, he said. Bo was sentenced to life imprisonment for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power.