Officials found guilty of graft involving 3 million yuan could face death penalty under the new judicial guidelines. (Photo : Getty Images)
Chinese officials who will be found guilty of graft involving 3 million yuan could face the death penalty under new judicial guidelines, the South China Morning Post reported.
The corruption threshold was an increase from the previous 100,000-yuan worth of bribe accepted.
Under the new rules, "defendants convicted of 'especially serious' offences of graft of between 1.5 million yuan and 3 million yuan . . . could also face the death penalty," the article said.
These offences include embezzling money for illegal activities, embezzling funds allocated for disaster relief and refusing to hand over funds considered illicit.
The new standards were jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate as a replacement to those stipulated in the Criminal Law in 1997.
The old rules have been receiving criticisms as they are said to be outdated, speaking of inflation and income growth.
For the previous years, China has seen seldom imposition of the death penalty among senior corrupt officials. Instead, most of those convicted for graft are only suspended for two years, which can later be commuted to life imprisonment if proven that they committed no additional offences.
Such is the case of Liu Zhijun, former railways minister, who was found to have taken 60 million yuan in bribes. In 2013, he was given a suspended death sentence, but last year, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Zhou Yongkang, a former security tsar, was also jailed for life after he and his family took a whopping 129 million yuan in bribes.
Two-year death sentence suspensions may be issued should there be mitigating factors, including voluntary return of ill-gotten wealth or confession, according to judicial interpretation.
Under the recently issued amendments, there will also be a new threshold for the prosecution of officials. Suspects of bribery involving 30,000 yuan are likely to face prosecution, while those suspected to have embezzled or received 10,000 yuan in bribes could also face the court.
Previously, the threshold for an official's criminal prosecution was at least 5,000 yuan in bribes.
