Village headman rolls up 400 million, misappropriation of public funds so simple 

Reporter: Xiong Lingdiao  
     

This is actually not a recent novelty. Liang Zenning, the former head of Tianxin Village in Luohu District, Shenzhen, used the village's old reform project as a bait from the2005year began to collect five or six real estate developers old reform earnest money totaling 400 million yuan deposited into the public depositories, but then Liang Zenin will be this money through the account transferred to overseas, in last year9moon26He lost contact with his family on March 1, 2010, and was recently formally wanted by Interpol on a red notice.        Not long ago there were reports that a man in Zhejiang Province embezzled public funds30million bounty on female webcasters, as well as college counselors gambling with public funds. From big tigers to grassroots counselors, embezzlement of public funds, absconding with the money has no hierarchical authority, a full range of financial personnel can commit crimes. Why is misappropriation of public funds so simple and where are the loopholes in regulation?

Light penalties and vague laws        

Zhu Junyi, former director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social Security, was convicted of misappropriating small-town insurance funds to the tune of $4 million.158.56Yuan, was sentenced by the Intermediate People's Court of Changchun City, Jilin, to a term of imprisonment for a combination of several offenses (accepting bribes, misappropriation of public funds, and abuse of official power).18Year. Misappropriation156billions18Years! It is worth mentioning that Zhu Junyi's arrest was still preceded by a124.21Billions of dollars have not been recovered. In addition, Zhao Baozhou, former secretary and director of the Daye City Public Resources Transaction Supervision and Administration Bureau, misappropriated public funds140million dollars and passive bribery19.5The final trial of 10,000 yuan was sentenced to a total of one year and seven months. Separately out of the two cases of misappropriation of public funds does not seem to seem to be anything, but after doing a comparison, you will find that the penalty for misappropriation of public funds in the law is really minor.
       2011In 2007, Luo Rong, on the grounds of financial turnover of sand farms, illegally collected funds3000million was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Xuancheng Central Court.2006In 2007, Xu Ting, a Shanxi native, used the bank'sATMMalfunctioning ATMs with malicious withdrawals17.5RMB10,000,000, the Guangzhou Intermediate Court sentenced Xu Ting to life imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for life, and confiscation of all personal property for the crime of theft; and recovery of17.5Ten thousand yuan returned to the Guangzhou Municipal Commercial Bank (later forced by public pressure to change the sentence). And thirty million and seventeen million compared to ten billion is simply a fraction of the number, the same is caused by the loss of property why misappropriation of public funds punishment is so light?

Article 384 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China provides:"If a state official takes advantage of the convenience of his or her position to embezzle public funds for personal use to carry out illegal activities, or if he or she embezzles a larger amount of public funds to carry out profit-making activities, or if he or she embezzles a larger amount of public funds and fails to return the funds for more than three months, he or she commits the crime of embezzlement of public funds, and shall be punished by fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or by detention; and in case of aggravating circumstances, he or she shall be sentenced to not less than five years' imprisonment. If the amount of misappropriated public funds is huge and not returned, the penalty shall be more than ten years' fixed-term imprisonment or life imprisonment. A person who misappropriates funds used for disaster relief, rescue, flood control, preferential treatment, poverty alleviation, immigration or relief for personal use shall be punished more severely.        The criminal law seems to make very clear criminal liability provisions for misappropriation of public funds, but in fact the ambiguity is also very obvious. Misappropriation of public funds in large amounts, how big is big? Misappropriation of public funds in which is considered serious? More than three months have not returned is the crime of misappropriation of public funds, then not more than three months back is not a crime?

The following is the explanation given by the Chinese court website: Some people believe that as long as the misappropriation of public funds to carry out illegal activities, regardless of the size of the amount or the length of time, should constitute a crime, namely"Illegal activity type"The crime of misappropriation of public funds does not have a starting point in terms of amount, nor does it have a time limit; as long as public funds are misappropriated, even if they are used for gambling or prostitution in the amount of 100 yuan or 1,000 yuan, or if they are returned within one or two days of being misappropriated, they shall be convicted and sentenced, which, in my opinion, clearly does not conform to the legislative intent. According to the provisions of paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 3 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Issues Relating to the Determination of the Diversion of Public Funds for Personal Use, where public funds are diverted for illegal activities, the starting point for criminal liability shall be the amount of the diversion of public funds of between five and ten thousand dollars, with the High Courts being given the authority to determine the specific amount of the standard for each place on the basis of the actual situation in the locality. As to the question of the timing of the misappropriation of public funds for unlawful activities, it should also be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
       Generally speaking, as long as the amount of misappropriation of public funds for illegal activities reaches the prescribed standard, it shall be convicted. However, if the misappropriator misappropriates a relatively small amount of public funds for illegal activities for only one day or two days and then returns it immediately, according to the provisions of article 13 of the Criminal Law, it is regarded as the circumstances are significantly less serious and harmful, and is not considered to be a crime, and it is not appropriate to recognize it as the crime of misappropriation of public funds any more.
       State workers, especially national civil servants, are paid very low salaries, which are in the lower middle of the national income scale, so state workers generally do not have much savings. However, there are many emergencies encountered by State employees. For example, a state employee in the parents, children or siblings in urgent need of hospitalization or life-threatening situations, but they do not have so much money on hand, if you borrow money, it will be too late, but he is handled by the public funds in the part of the money, he should choose to adhere to the country's financial system to watch their parents, children or siblings die or should choose to embezzle public funds to save their own first loved ones? Which is more important: affection, the system or the law? As the saying goes:"family love is priceless". Often he will choose to embezzle public funds to save his loved ones, even if he loses his job or even goes to jail for it. This is because he is a human being first and a state employee second. If our state employees are not even human beings, how can we expect them to serve the people? This situation can also be understood by the people.

The China Court Network is the authoritative legal website in China approved by the Supreme People's Court, but the author does not consider the explanations published by it to be reasonable. Assuming that the above factors do exist, then all in the criminal law to do a breakdown, such as mentioned earlier involving the misappropriation of disaster relief, poverty alleviation, immigration, relief and other funds for personal use to be heavily penalized. Why can't the embezzlement of public funds in the affirmation, embezzlement of public funds for life-saving, certain social welfare, etc. is not considered a crime, but to embezzlement of public funds for three months did not pay back the general situation is categorized as not a crime?
       Since we have to talk about the human touch, the wages of even lower migrant workers illegal fund-raising for the payment of medical life-saving family members, or into the education and scientific research, three months repayment is not illegal fund-raising, is not it possible to wait until three months after the person ran away before arresting people? Why the same is caused by the loss of property, civil servants lost tens of billions of dollars to sentence18years, and the old man's fraud of ten million dollars counts as a life sentence? What's even more dramatic is the fact that in2005years up to2009surname Nian6In the monthly statistics, among the defendants who were convicted of job-related crimes nationwide, those who were sentenced to exemptions and probation accounted for a total of69.7percent. This also means thatNearly 70% of job offenders don't actually end up in jail.Certainly, the author is not trying to justify illegal fund-raising, but only questioning why there is a huge difference in the sanction for the same loss results. Are the laws and penalties scientific and reasonable?

The law is vague and regulation is even weaker      

 The fundamental reason for the existence of private misappropriation of public funds is because of the failure of supervision, why the original village of Tianxin Village, Luohu District, can roll up money400The reason for the easy escape of hundreds of millions of dollars is that the property situation is not publicized and transparent in relation to ordinary people. If it is public property, the public can see in real time where the property is going, and they will not wait until many corrupt officials have transferred their money abroad and their people have fled abroad before realizing that public funds have been misappropriated.        Also, what is arrears of public funds and what is misappropriation. Misappropriation of criminal law has a special crime, while arrears of public funds is too involved, there is no relative management mechanism. The same is to take a public money, in the absence of investigation before the intervention, the money is likely to have a way to be characterized as arrears of public funds and to avoid punishment, which in turn step to reduce the risk of the wind, so that the misappropriation of public funds is more and more unscrupulous behavior.       In addition, apart from supervision, there are also loopholes in management, especially in some small units, where the financial expenditure or income goes through the hands of a single person. If some units can optimize the management mechanism, some of the"professional work"The collection of accounts is separate from invoicing and is carried out by at least3Individuals operate separately in order to keep each other in check, which will greatly reduce the misappropriation of public property.

Dangers of misappropriation of public funds

        Misappropriation of public funds not only leads to a large loss of public assets, resulting in irreparable losses, the private use of public funds due to the lack of supervision, the criminal law sentence is too light, the person who holds these funds in the face of the temptation of the current era of gold worship is difficult to self-restraint, spend lavishly and lavishly to enrich their own pockets, and even throw away money on the
Gambling or keeping mistresses, it's even more inflated"I'm in charge of my own place."The corrupt ideas that fueled the unhealthy trend made a number of originally good cadres go to the abyss.        The misappropriation of public funds is so easy that it not only affects personal style, it also facilitates the provision of some units of"supplementary cash reserve"In addition, it is convenient to evade the supervision of the relevant authorities, which breeds tax evasion and corruption, affects the normal turnover of funds, and even absconds with the money, resulting in the loss of property and delaying the development of the country! The easy misappropriation of public funds should be taken seriously!