Penalties meted out for dereliction of duty and abuse of power
by officials involved in serious workplace accidents have been "too
lenient" as a result of sympathy from local governments, a Chinese
prosecutor said Wednesday.
Song Hansong, deputy director of the work-related crimes section
of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), said that many
workplace accidents were directly related to the abuse of power and
dereliction of duty, such as authorizing unsafe mines or turning a
blind eye to illegal mining activities.
"Many officials have been exempted from prosecution, or given
lesser sentences because local courts are usually under pressure
from governments to believe the officials didn't intentionally
cause the accidents," Song said in an interview.
According to statistics, up to Dec. 20, Chinese prosecutors had
investigated 1,383 cases of serious workplace accidents in 2006 and
only 629 government employees were prosecuted.
"Most of them were exempted from criminal sanctions or put on
probation," said Song.
He warned that some local governments still have not understood
the harm of job-related crimes and impede investigations and ask
for leniency for indicted officials.
"Some local officials claim that it is simply a 'bad outcome
generated by a good intention', rather than a violation of the
law," he said.
"Some local governments are reluctant to report and hand over
cases to the procuratorates and contented themselves with giving
the suspects administrative rather than criminal sanctions," Song
said.
The work safety situation in China is still grim. Statistics
show that 2,459 serious workplace accidents occurred last year,
taking 10,898 lives.
(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2007)