Government officials who fail to account for dubious assets in their possession will face tougher punishment, under a draft amendment to the criminal law that lawmakers began to discuss yesterday. The maximum jail term for public officials who cannot explain the source of unreasonably large amounts of assets they hold will be doubled from five years to 10 years - if the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, approves the draft amendment during its current five-day session. The draft also stipulates that retired government officials and relatives and close friends of an official will be subject to criminal penalties if they take advantage of the official's positions to obtain bribes or make profits, Xinhua reported yesterday. The existing law on unaccountable assets of public officials, which was enacted 20 years ago, only affects the incumbent official. It was 'very necessary' to impose heavier penalties on officials abusing their power for personal gain, to up the ante in the anti-corruption drive, Li Shishi , director of the NPC Standing Committee's Legal Affairs Commission, was quoted as saying at yesterday's meeting. But experts in corruption law argue that although the amendment is a sign of progress on what is a nearly dysfunctional law, the improvement is too small to be effective. 'The current law has degenerated into a cushion for corrupt officials,' said Ren Jianming , director of Tsinghua University's clean governance programme. Usually, officials who face investigation into dubious assets choose not to identify or explain the sources, because otherwise they could face bribery or embezzlement charges, which carry a possible death sentence. 'They have an incentive not to account for questionable money in their possession, because the worst scenario they can get is only five years in jail, much better than a life sentence or the death penalty,' Professor Ren said. 'The existing law encourages them to lie.' Ma Huaide , a professor of criminal law at the China University of Political Science and Law, agreed. '[The existing law] is ill-defined, and corrupt officials can easily use it as a protective shield,' he told Xinhua. The amendment, which raises the jail sentence to 10 years, is not heavy enough to make officials with dubious assets confess. 'The punishment is still too light and leaves plenty of loopholes,' Professor Ren said. 'More amendments should be in the pipeline.' Also, the lack of complementary legislation and even conventional wisdom all contributed to the sorry state of the implementation of the existing law, he said. There has yet to be any law on the mainland that obligates public officials to declare their personal assets, which can explain the small number of people convicted solely on the charge of unaccountable assets. 'Dubious assets of officials only get exposed because they're already under investigation on bribery charges, or their houses get broken into.' Also, people take for granted that so-called 'grey income' - income from sources other than salary - is justified. 'All these things make it unlikely for unaccountable assets to be exposed,' Professor Ren said.