China vows to clean up judiciary corruption

BEIJING - China's Chief Justice Wang Shengjun said Thursday that courts will take actions on judicial corruption to prevent abuse of judicial power after a former vice president of the supreme court was jailed for life two months ago.

The pledge came after Huang Songyou, former SPC vice president, was sentenced on January 19 to life imprisonment for taking bribes and embezzlement.

Huang was convicted of taking more than 3.9 million yuan (about 574,000 US dollars) of bribes from 2005 to 2008.

Prosecutor-General Cao Jianming said in a separate report the same day that prosecutors investigated more than 2,700 judiciary workers suspected of graft and malpractice for personal gains last year.

Cao said the authority will "never relax its efforts" in crack down on judicial corruption.

Judiciary staff will be punished if they are found "meddling and intervening court cases, giving bribes to law enforcement personnel, beating or verbally abusing petitioners and over-running timetables to enforce court rulings," according to an SPC regulation earlier this year.