Report on the Work of the Supreme People's Court (2014)
III. Adhering to Justice for the People, and Safeguarding Legitimate Rights and Interests of the People according to Law
—— Improving civil adjudication. The people's courts endeavored to safeguard and improve people's livelihood in conformity with law. The people's courts at various levels concluded 3.554 million civil cases of first instance. The SPC issued judicial interpretations on the trials of labor dispute cases and food and drug dispute cases, and guiding opinions on intensifying judicial protection of consumer rights and interests. The courts at various levels concluded 537,000 cases relating to personal injury, labor employment, education, medical treatment, housing and consumption. The SPC highly valued the issues of agriculture, farmers and rural areas, protected the rights and interests of farmers, promoted agricultural development, and concluded 203,000 cases involving transfer of rural land use rights, house site disputes, and defaults of migrant worker salaries. It also emphasized the protection of legitimate rights and interests of rural left-behind elderly, women, children, and the disabled, and concluded 1.612 million cases of marriage, family, child-raising and inheritance to promote family harmony. The courts concluded 2,464 cases of resources development and environment protection, promoted environmental non-profit litigations, and facilitated construction of beautiful China. We paid high attention to safeguarding the legal rights involving the army, hearing cases involving the army, improving the judicial organs and working mechanism for the cases involving the army, and effectively safeguarding the interests of national defense and the legitimate rights and interests of the servicemen and their families.
—— Improving administrative adjudication and state compensation. The people's courts heard administrative proceedings pursuant to law, effectively protected legitimate rights and interests of the citizens, legal persons and other organizations, and promoted administrative departments in exercising their functions and powers in accordance with law. The people's courts at various levels concluded 121,000 administrative cases of first instance. Meanwhile, The people's courts also properly heard housing demolition administrative proceedings of high social concerns, protected legitimate rights and interests of the removed according to law, and supported the local governments to improve environment and develop economy. The people's courts enhanced the coordination for administrative cases and the enforcement for non-lawsuit administrative cases to facilitate the settlement of administrative disputes. The people's courts duly provided feedback to the administrative organs on prominent issues of administrative law enforcement found in the course of case hearing, in order to promote positive interaction between the judicial and administrative organs. The SPC worked with the Ministry of Justice to promulgate an opinion on strengthening legal aid for state compensation, to guarantee that the impoverished people exercise their rights claiming for compensation according to law. The SPC issued a judicial interpretation on the application of cross-examination procedure in the trial of state compensation cases so as to ensure state compensation procedure open and transparent. The people's courts at various levels concluded 2,045 cases of state compensation, involving 87.352 million RMB of indemnity.
—— Resolving the appeals of the people who initiated litigation-related petitions through letters and visits pursuant to law. The people's courts strengthened the concept of the masses, intensified governance at the source, established long-term mechanism, shifted the work priority to the community level, and continually improved litigation-related petitions through letters and visits. The SPC set up the circuit supervision collegial panel and toured the country with cases to facilitate solving cases on the spot. The people's courts at various levels received 539,000 petitioners, down 10.2% year on year. The SPC promoted the reform of the working mechanism for litigation-related petitions, improved the mechanisms of "separating litigations from petitions" and case settlement, and encouraged the third party including lawyers to participate in the process of resolving litigation-related petitions. The SPC reinforced supervision of adjudication, safeguarded the rights of the parties involved for petitions and the application for retrial. The people's courts concluded 116,000 petition cases and the applications for retrials, retried 30,000 cases according to law, and changed 1,415 original verdicts which were wrong in original judgments or due to other statutory circumstances, accounting for 0.09% of the effective judgments.
—— Focusing on resolving the problem of difficult enforcement. The people's courts at various levels accepted 2.989 million enforcement cases, with 2.718 million enforced effectively, up 14% and 10.2% respectively year on year. Among them, 21,000 cases involved government organs and institutions, valuing 25.6 billion RMB. The SPC launched a special program for the enforcement of cases relating to people's livelihood at the end of 2013, concluding 30,000 cases amounting to the value of 1.14 billion RMB. The SPC established a name list of the faithless persons subjected to execution, and exposed them to the public. Under the support of the Central Civilization Affairs Office, Ministry of Public Security, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, State Administration for Industry and Commerce, China Banking Regulatory Commission, State Civil Aviation Administration, and China Railway Corporation, 72,000 faithless persons subject to enforcement were disciplinarily punished, among which around 20% fulfilled their duties in awe of credit punishment. The SPC fully promoted construction of the point-to-point network monitoring enforcement mechanism with other departments assisting in case execution, including financial institutions, land and resources administration organs and administrations of industry and commerce, with the aim of intensifying anti-circumvention enforcement. The SPC further facilitated the construction of the enforcement command center, integrated enforcement resources, and improved enforcement efficiency. The SPC brought forth a new auction mode for enforcement, in which we held judicial auctions through the Internet to reduce auction costs and raise the rate of amortization.
—— Easy access to justice. The SPC promoted a series of work including litigation guidance according to circumstances, appointments-making to file a case, electronic service of documents, circuit case handling, and remote video court hearing. The SPC further standardized the service for case-filing and petition through letters and visits, and endeavored to make people easy access to justice in every stage covering case-filing, trials, enforcement, and petitions. The SPC drove on the construction of people's tribunals for the convenience of people to make lawsuits nearby. The SPC further enhanced the work of risk tips and questions answering after the trials, to guide the parties to a rational lawsuit. The SPC determined to hear simple cases with summary procedure, to alleviate litigation burdens of the parties involved. It also took sweeping measures for judicial remedies. The people's courts at various levels mitigated 190 million RMB legal costs for the parties involved in real difficulty.