Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-04-24
A draft interpretation of China's Criminal Law, tabled for reading on Monday, aims to clear up ambiguities by clearly defining eating endangered wild animals, or buying them for this or other purposes, as illegal.
 |
| A giant panda at the Huanglong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan, April 22. (Photo/CNS) |
A draft interpretation of China's Criminal Law, tabled for reading on Monday, aims to clear up ambiguities by clearly defining eating endangered wild animals, or buying them for this or other purposes, as illegal.
The bill
was submitted for first reading by the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, at its bimonthly session from
Monday to Thursday.
Eating rare
wild animals is not only bad social conduct but also a main reason why illegal
hunting has not been stopped despite repeated crackdowns, said Lang Sheng,
deputy head of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing
Committee, when elaborating on the bill to lawmakers.
Currently,
420 species of wild animals are considered rare or endangered by the Chinese
government. They include giant pandas, golden monkeys, Asian black bears and
pangolins.
According
to the bill, anyone who eats the animals on this list or buys them for other
purposes, will be considered to be breaking the Criminal Law and will face a
jail term from below five years to more than 10 years.
While the
current Criminal Law bans illegal hunting of any wild animals, it fails to
clarify whether buying prey of illegal hunting breaks the law, and many buyers
walk away unpunished.
"In
fact, buyers are a major motivator of large-scale illegal hunting," Lang
said.
To close
the loophole, the bill regulates that knowingly buying any wild animals that
are prey of illegal hunting is considered a form of fencing and will face a
maximum three-year imprisonment.
Having one
of the world's richest wildlife resources, China is home to around 6,500
vertebrate species, about 10% of the world's total. More than 470 terrestrial
vertebrates are indigenous to China, including giant pandas, golden monkeys,
South China tigers and Chinese alligators.
However,
the survival of wildlife in the country faces serious challenges from illegal
hunting, consumption of wild animal products and a worsening environment.
The bill is
the tenth interpretative move to the Criminal Law by the top legislature since
it took effect in 1997. The law has also been through nine amendments.
Three other
issues were explained in the bill, concerning social insurance fraud, company
registration fraud and organizations involved in violating personal rights.
Since the
current law does not regulate social insurance fraud, offenders have faced
different penalties. Some have been prosecuted and jailed and some have
received administrative punishment, while the rest have walked free after
returning what they gained illegally, according to Lang. It will need the top legislature's
clarification to better fight the crimes, he added.
The bill
puts defrauding social insurance through cheating, faked documents and other
means in the offences of swindling public and private money or property. This
means the offender will face a jail time from below three years to more than
ten years.
The third
entry in the bill is to update the Criminal Law in line with the latest
amendment to the company law which was made last December.
The revised
law removes the requirement on an ordinary company to actually deposit a set
amount of money, out of its registered capital, to obtain a business license.
Instead, shareholders of the company take responsibility of confirming the
contributions.
The bill
lifts criminal penalties on shareholders of these companies if they make a
false capital contribution.
The current
two provisions about capital contribution fraud will only be applied to a few
sorts of companies like banks that are still required to deposit registered
capital.
The bill
also clarifies that if an organization is involved in violating personal and
property rights of a citizen, the individuals in the organization, who
mastermind and commit such crimes, should be held responsible.
Related Article:
No comments:
Post a Comment