China's top judge and president of the Supreme People's Court, Xiao Yang, Tuesday pledged to strictly penalize any judges who violate laws and discipline.

This year 972 court workers violated laws and disciplinary codes in China and 104 were prosecuted.

A national meeting of China's provincial court presidents that opened here Monday has seen heated debate on how to prevent judges from committing malpractice, such as taking bribes and prejudice.

Some judges and lawyers colluded with each other, which severely threatened the justice of the law, said Gong Pixiang, president of the Provincial Higher People's Court of east China's Jiangsu province on Tuesday.

A mechanism should be established to effectively keep judges away from lawyers out of the court, said Cai Zhang, president of the Provincial Higher People's Court of northeast China's Jilin province.

Usually a judge earns approximately 40,000 yuan (about US$4,850) annually in China whereas a lawyer is only able to earn as much as 500,000 yuan (nearly US$60,500).

Cai acknowledged that money was one of the temptations for some judges to violate laws.

Rules and regulations had been promulgated in a large number of Chinese provinces to regulate judges.

In southwestern Sichuan province, the Provincial Higher People's Court issued a regulation on relations between judges and parties and lawyers.

Judges could be warned, disciplined, punished and even fired if they violated the regulation, for instance, by meeting lawyers and parties in private or borrowing money from them.

(Xinhua News Agency December 17, 2003)