Relatives and "secret lovers" of corrupt Chinese officials could face prison under draft legal amendments that target spiralling corruption in the government ranks, state media said Tuesday.
Relatives and people who have "intimate relations" with corrupt officials face up to seven years' imprisonment if they abuse the officials' positions to accept bribes or otherwise profit illegally, the China Daily said.
The punishments, spelled out in an amendment to the Criminal Law submitted to the country's legislature Monday, mark the Communist Party's latest attempt to mop up a tide of government sleaze increasingly seen as a serious threat to the party's ruling legitimacy.
Corruption is rampant in China, both in the government ranks and throughout society, with the country experiencing record growth but lacking the checks and balances of a free press or independent judiciary.
Increasingly, corruption cases have involved government officials who have enriched family members or had extra-marital affairs.
The official Xinhua news agency reported last year that of the 16 highest-level officials felled by corruption since 2003, 14 kept mistresses.
"Taking bribes has become a practice among some relatives and lovers of corrupt officials," the China Daily said.
It quoted Li Shishi, head of a Legal Affairs Commission in the legislature, as saying "they, too, deserve severe punishment."
In one of the worst recent such cases, an investigation last year into an investment scheme concocted by Pang Jiayu, a top official in the northern province of Shaanxi, revealed that he had collected at least 11 mistresses.
Some of them were the wives of Shaanxi notables who sought a cut of the illegal profits generated by the scheme, according to state media reports.
