Philandering officials to tell if they kiss
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-05-20 09:06

Nanjing city government has issued a regulation requiring public officials to report their extramarital affairs in a controversial bid to curb corruption.

Li Shana, mistress of former vice-minister of Public Security Li Jizhou, sits in the dock as being on trial in this file photo taken on December 19, 2002. Li Shana was sentenced 10-year in prison. [newsphoto/file]

According to marriage law experts, 95 percent of China's convicted corrupt officials had mistresses.

In south China's prosperous cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Zhuhai, for instance, every official involved in the 102 corruption cases investigated during 1999 were found to be having affairs.

In addition, one of China's most notorious corruption cases involved an illicit affair. Cheng Kejie, former vice-chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, and mistress Li Ping were convicted of conspiring to take more than 40 million yuan (US$4.8 million) in bribes. They planned to use the money after divorcing their spouses and marrying each other.

Cheng was sentenced to death and executed in 2000.

The regulation in Nanjing, capital city of east China's Jiangsu Province, also gives the government permission to intervene in a relationship if an official's family stability is affected.

The measure has sparked heated debate in the Chinese legal community.

Zhuo Zeyuan, a professor in the politics and law department under the Party School of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee, said requiring officials to report their marital situation will help put them under public supervision.

But the reporting should not infringe on the interests of the official's spouse, Zhou said.

Mo Jihong, a noted researcher at the Institute of Law Science under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the measure violates a citizen's privacy rights and China's marriage law, which allows everyone the freedom to marry and divorce.

Mo also said the rule is not feasible, as no one will willingly volunteer information about an extramarital affair.

Wang Lei, an associate professor at Beijing University's law college, argued that civil servants, especially senior ones, should not enjoy full privacy because their posts bring them great power. If they refuse to disclose appropriate personal information, the general public may not trust them.

The Chinese government has increased its efforts in recent years to fight corruption.

In 2003 and 2004, 29 ministerial-level officials were imprisoned for bribe taking.

Last year, the CPC published its first internal supervision regulations since 1949 to intensify the country's anti-graft campaign.

The rules put the Party's 68 million members, including its leaders and top decision-making body, under rigid public supervision.

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