Greater efforts would be made this year to build a “clean court system”, Xiao, president of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), said in an interview with China Daily.

“We must never relax our vigilance on corruption,” he said, after he reported to the National People’s Congress in early March that, last year, 292 judges were subjected to power abuse investigations, with 109 of them prosecuted.

The number of judges charged with corruption was 378 in 2005 and 461 in 2004.