A loophole enabling people to buy hunters' prey has been closed, with new legislation clearly defining the eating of endangered wild animals or buying them for other purposes as a crime.
The draft revision of China's Criminal Law was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, for initial reading this week. The bill will be the 10th revision of the Criminal Law since it took effect in 1997.
There are 420 species of animal considered rare or endangered by the Chinese government, including giant pandas, golden monkeys and Asian black bears. The new legislation states that anyone who eats or buys the listed animals will be breaking the law, facing a jail term. The new regulations have been put in place after a loophole allowed people to buy the endangered animals, as there was no clarification whether buying the animals was illegal. Lang Sheng, deputy head of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee said that "buyers are a major motivator of large-scale illegal hunting". Now, however, anyone wittingly buying animals that are victims of illegal hunting will face a maximum three year sentence.
China is home to around 6,500 vertebrate species, making up about 10 percent of the world's total. However, illegal hunting, consumption of wild animal products and a worsening environment is proving to be a serious challenge for China's wildlife. The draft regulation follows a series of positive action for China's animals including last week's biggest ever bear rescue in which Animals Asia saved 130 bears from a bile farm in Nanning.
The bill also deals with social insurance fraud, company registration fraud and organisations involved in violating personal rights. The current law does not prosecute social insurance fraud, so new penalties for offenders have been introduced. Lang said, "Some have been prosecuted and jailed; some given administrative punishment; while others have walked free after returning illegally gained goods".
The Criminal Law will also be updated to fit in line with the amended Company Law last December. According to Shanghai Daily, the revised law will modify shareholder responsibility:
The revised law removes the requirement on an ordinary company to deposit a set amount of money from out of its registered capital and to obtain a business license. Instead, shareholders of the company take the responsibility of confirming contributions.The bill would lift criminal penalties on shareholders of these companies if they made a false capital contribution.The current two provisions about capital contribution fraud will only be applied to a few kinds of companies such as banks that are still required to deposit registered capital.
The new laws also state that an individual or individuals in a company will be held responsible if a client's personal or property rights are violated.
[Image via Flickr]
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