Criminal suspects' human rights will be better guaranteed as they pass through the judicial process, Deputy Prosecutor-General Wang Zhenchuan said Wednesday.

Judicial officials who beat, bind or refuse to provide enough food to suspects will be assigned criminal responsibility, according to a judicial interpretation of the Criminal Law issued Wednesday.

The regulations issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) outline 42 offences of abuse of office with criteria by which prosecuting authorities could launch investigations.

The offences include:

-- divulging state secrets;

-- releasing detainees without proper authority;

-- abusing authority in company registration and establishment;

-- failing to properly collect taxes;

-- illegally issuing logging and tree-felling permits;

-- selling land-use rights below value;

-- improperly recruiting public servants;

-- aiding and abetting fugitives;

-- extracting confessions through torture, collecting evidence by violent means and abusing detainees.

Using torture to extort confessions have received more public attention since She Xianglin, who was wrongly jailed for 11 years after being tortured into a "confession," was set free in April in Central China's Hubei Province.

She claimed local policemen beat him for 10 days and 11 nights. He was given only two meals per day.

However, although the claims were investigated, nobody was prosecuted. "In the past, we defined the rights infringement in the dereliction of duty as 'fierce methods and negative influences.' But the formulation is too general to enforce," Wang told reporters yesterday.

Having detailed guidelines on actions for which a policeman or other judicial official will be investigated and prosecuted will help the public prosecutor strengthen the penalties for the most serious rights infringements, according to the deputy procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

The new interpretation, which took effect from Wednesday, also will assign criminal responsibilities to local officials who abused their authorities or neglected their duties resulting in coal mine accidents.

Whenever anyone is killed in an accident, the local Party and government official who took decisions illegally or failed to fulfil his or her obligation should be investigated and prosecuted if cause to do so is established, the judicial interpretation said.

Criminal responsibility may also be assigned if a direct economic loss of more than 100,000 yuan (US$12,500) or an indirect loss of more than 500,000 yuan (US$62,500) was caused to private property after an official abuse of power, according to the interpretation.

"As the standard for crime of malfeasance was unclear in the past, few officials responsible for coal mine accidents were assigned any criminal responsibility," Chen Lianfu, a criminal prosecutor with the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said yesterday.

He promised that officials who meet the standard for investigation and prosecution would have to answer for their crimes. Malfeasance arrests have already begun, Chen said.

Fifty-six workers were confirmed dead in a coal mine accident last month in the Zuoyun County of North China's Shanxi Province after a 40-day recovery operation.

Four township-level officials Chang Rui, Wang Yongxiang, Liu Yongxin and Chen Xiqing colluded with the coal mine owners to hide the accident in May. Ten other county and township safety authorities did not fulfil their obligations in examining and announced the results of the coal mine safety tests. The 14 were arrested early this month on charges of abusing their offices.