* The author says corruption in China is the result of a lack of supervision and the absence of a sound anti-graft mechanism.

A controversial former top judge, understood by some media outlets last year to be the subject of a corruption investigation, has suggested in a new book that China sets up a special team to probe alleged graft.

Scholars said the idea of establishing a unified State-level anti-corruption organ, proposed in the postscript of Xiao Yang's new book, was a step in the right direction. But they said the concept put forward by the former president of the Supreme People's Court was "hardly realistic" in the existing political and judicial system.

Xiao's book, Anti-corruption Report, was formally released yesterday by the Legal Press. In it, Xiao says corruption in China is the result of a lack of supervision and the absence of a sound anti-graft mechanism.

He called for the setting up of a unified State-level organization capable of adjusting and optimizing existing anti-graft resources, which are presently scattered throughout many disparate departments.

He suggested that the organization be elected by, and report to, the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature. The Congress could make the necessary laws to grant the organ the power to receive public reports and investigate possible corruption cases, as well as the authority to detain and arrest officials who refuse to declare their property.

Xiao suggested officials be better-paid, to minimize their vulnerability to potential bribes, and the media be given the supervision power and ability to expose corruption.

Anti-graft investigations are currently undertaken by a combination of representatives from various government and judicial organs, involving procuratorates, police and supervision departments.

"Such a mechanism has resulted in poor efficiency and a lack of independence," said Ren Jianming, dean of the anti-corruption research center at the Beijing-based Tsinghua University.

"Therefore, Xiao's proposal of setting up an independent and centralized body, something similar to Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), is heading in the right direction," Ren said.

Tony Kwok Man-wai, former deputy commissioner and head of operations with the ICAC in Hong Kong, said coordination across the many anti-graft agencies on the mainland is inadequate and a centralized body at the top level was needed.

"This could avoid situations in which the central government delivers an anti-corruption order and the lower-level government ignores it."

But Mao Shoulong, a public administration researcher at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said the suggestion was "unrealistic" because it calls for a major reform of the existing political and judicial system on the mainland.

Xiao was well known for judicial reforms during his decade at the Supreme People's Court, starting in 1998. He retired in 2008, aged 70.

Last November, unconfirmed reports from media in Hong Kong and overseas said Xiao had been put under shuanggui, an extra-legal detention for Party officials, in connection to his possible involvement in the alleged corruption of his subordinate, Huang Songyou.

Huang, former vice president of the top court, was sacked last October for alleged corruption in a Guangdong land sale scandal. That investigation is continuing.

The top court has neither confirmed nor denied the reports. It did release a newsletter on its website in November in which it said present court chief Wang Shengjun had asked Xiao for his views on ways to improve the work of the judiciary, a move seen by overseas media as an official attempt to dispel the rumors.

However, some scholars have said Xiao is not the right person to suggest reforms.

An anti-corruption researcher with the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China refused to comment because "it's still not clear whether he's clean himself".

"It would be absurd if Xiao is found to be corrupt in the future," said the anonymous researcher.

But the publisher of the book, the Legal Press, stands by the author. It says on its website the volume shows the creativity, resolution and openness of the former top judge.