The National People's Congress (NPC) is mulling amending the Criminal Procedure Law later this year to take the country's legal system closer to international practice.

The amendment, aimed at adapting to the UN Convention against Corruption, is part of China's efforts to bring to justice a large number of corrupt officials who have fled overseas.

Wang Zhenchuan, deputy procurator general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said the Standing Committee of the NPC, the country's top legislature, is scheduled to take up the amendment in October.

The amendment may include the burden of providing evidence, system of criminal trials by default, as well as cooperation between Chinese and foreign judicial organs.

With the amendment, procuratorate departments can prosecute an official for possessing property disproportionate to his income without giving evidence but by reasoning from existing proof.

Now Chinese courts cannot raise a criminal or civil action in the absence of a suspect. So they cannot do anything to punish those who have fled abroad except negotiate with those nations for their extradition.

"Despite some differences, the formulation or revision of Chinese domestic laws will follow the UN convention because China is a signatory country," Wang said.

He conceded the differences between Chinese laws and the UN convention have made it difficult for China to seek international cooperation to extradite corrupt officials.

Chinese laws, for example, say bribery crimes must include material enrichment, while the convention stipulates "all unlawful profits, not necessarily material properties, and even not necessarily acquirements in real sense but maybe merely promises, all should be considered as briberies".

In terms of penalty, the Chinese laws stipulate heavier punishments than the overseas ones. A person found guilty of taking a bribe of 100,000 yuan ($13,233) can be jailed for 10 years or more in China, compared to a maximum of seven to eight years in other countries.

Some countries, especially in the West, have reportedly rejected China's demand to extradite corrupt officials because Beijing can hand down the capital punishment for economic crimes.

About 800 suspects wanted for embezzling a cumulative 70 billion yuan (US$9.2 billion) are living abroad. Few of them have been extradited.

China signed the UN document in December 2003, and the NPC ratified it unanimously in October 2005.

(China Daily July 26, 2007)