A senior legal official has called for stiffer penalties for civil servants found guilty of dereliction of duty and abuse of power, describing the current punishments as "too lenient".

"Because they receive sympathy from local government officials, officials accused of dereliction crimes generally don't get the punishments they deserve," Song Hansong, deputy director of the anti-dereliction bureau of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, was quoted by the People's Daily as saying on Wednesday.

He made the remarks after a local court in North China's Shanxi Province handed down sentences to 12 officials who had been found guilty of dereliction of duty in connection with a coalmine accident last May. The accident killed 56 miners, but the court ruled that three of the officials would not have to face criminal punishments and put the remaining nine on probation.

According to the Criminal Law, officials found guilty of dereliction crimes could receive prison sentences of up to 10 years.

However, figures from the top procuratorate show that mining case was not the only one in which corrupt officials received lenient penalties. Prosecutors across the country handled cases involving 629 suspects facing charges of "duty dereliction and power abuse" last year. Courts had ruled on 257 of them by the end of the year.

"However, our analysis showed that most of the 257 people received lesser sentences or were totally exempted from criminal sanctions," Song was quoted as saying.

He said that by impeding investigations and seeking leniency for indicted officials, local government officials show that they do not realize how much harm job-related crime can cause.

"Some government officials are reluctant to report and hand over cases to the procuratorates and have contented themselves with giving suspects administrative rather than criminal punishments," Song said.

He criticized efforts by some local officials to portray dereliction of duty as simply a "bad outcome generated by good intentions", rather than as violations of the law.

Song said many workplace accidents are directly related to dereliction of duty and abuse of power, such as granting authorization to unsafe mines or turning a blind eye to illegal mining activities.

Official figures show that 2,459 serious workplace accidents occurred last year, taking 10,898 lives.

The State Administration of Work Safety announced on Wednesday that the number of coalmine accidents last month was up by 34.5 percent compared with that of last year.

(China Daily 02/09/2007 page3)