The Supreme People's Procuratorate of China (SPPC) announced on July 26 that prosecuting bodies all over the country prosecuted 8,517 officials for duty dereliction from June 2004 to June 2005, up 2.3 percent from the same period of the previous year.

Wang Zhenchuan, vice president of the SPPC said Tuesday at a press conference that the nationwide special campaign to crack down on human rights infringement by abusing public power has scored achievements. It constituted a step forward for implementing the principle of " the state respecting and safeguarding human rights", which is enshrined in the Constitution.

Wang also disclosed that from July 2005 to the end of next year, the prosecuting bodies all over the country will launch another special campaign for cracking down on dereliction of duty by the officials who take charge in safeguarding and supervising the market order.

He said the current rampant tax evasion, commercial fraud, fake product produce and selling and smuggling, which severely undermined the socialist market order, were sometimes related to official's fraudulent practices.

The new statistics from the Supreme People's Procuratorate showed that from 2000 to June 2005, China's prosecuting body investigated a total of 34,685 cases of dereliction of duty with 38,554 officials involved, causing direct economic losses of 48.05 billion yuan (about 5.9 billion US dollars).

Source: Xinhua