China Approves Amended Law to Better Protect Informants

China's National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, endorsed Friday afternoon the first amendment to the country's more than 10-year-old Administrative Supervision Law.

The amended law highlights specific provisions, which are aimed at strengthening the protection of informants.

He Fei has the details.

The newly amended law stresses that those who reveal an informant's personal information or the issues they report will be punished or even face criminal charges so as to protect the informant.

It also requires authorities to tell the informant the results of the investigation for tip-offs where informants give their real names.

Liu Xirong, deputy chairman of the law committee of China's National People Congress, explains the considerations behind the amendments.

"In practice, it often happens that whistle-blowers' personal information is leaked, which brings about retaliation by the wrongdoers. In light of this situation, we should strengthen protection of the informants by clarifying the treatment procedures on informants' reports and legal liabilities for information leakage."

Moreover, a new provision of the amended law states that supervision authorities should release information about their supervision work to the public.

Feng Jun, a law professor from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says this provision is significant for the country's administrative supervision.

"We should involve the general public into our administrative supervision work. The release of information about administrative supervision work will improve the effectiveness of China's administrative supervision."

China passed the Administrative Supervision Law in 1997 in an effort to improve administrative efficiency and fight corruption.

But the law lacked detailed procedures concerning how to apply administrative supervision and effective protection on informants.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate says whistleblowers in China have helped uncover more than 70 percent of all registered cases of work-related crimes involving officials.

But it also reveals that about 70 percent of those who report suspects to the prosecution system nationwide have encountered some form of revenge.

For CRI, I'm He Fei.