The founding meeting of the China Judges’ Federation of Literature and Art was held both online and offline on June 23, 2022. [Photo/ court.gov.cn]

Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), speaks at the founding meeting of the China Judges’ Federation of Literature and Art, which was held both online and offline, June 23, 2022. [Photo/ court.gov.cn]

Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), pledged to propel cultural advancement of people’s courts and provide strong judicial services in the building of a socialist cultural powerhouse and the rule of law in China.

He made those remarks at the founding meeting of the China Judges’ Federation of Literature and Art, which was held both online and offline on June 23. Zhu Di, vice-chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC) and Wu Yiqin, vice-chairman of the China Writers Association (CWA) attended the meeting and delivered speeches.

Zhou extended warm congratulations on the founding of the federation on behalf of the Party Committee of the SPC. He pointed out that the central authorities attach great importance to the development of cultural undertakings. As a key part of the advanced socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, court culture has witnessed great development over the years with efforts by courts across the nation pertaining to literary and artistic creation on judicial work.

Zhou said the establishment of the federation is a key measure to implement the central authorities’ instructions on cultural advancement and marks a new historical starting point for courts’ work on cultural matters.

Courts at all levels need to strive for a prosperous cultural development related to court work, uphold the absolute leadership of the Party, adopt a people-centered approach, and carry forward the socialist core values, he said.

Zhou emphasized focusing on creating high-quality works and telling good rule-of-law stories to showcase the achievements in this regard since the 18th national congress of the Communist Party of China, inheriting the traditional Chinese legal culture and advancing with the times, as well as maintaining an international perspective to tell Chinese stories on the rule of law.

More efforts are needed to improve the working mechanism and organizational system to secure an orderly development of the court culture work, Zhou added.

Zhu hoped the federation will focus on creating outstanding works to fully reflect the people’s courts practices for the people with justice, and give full play to the bridging role between courts and writers and artists to tell good rule-of-law stories in the new era from the unique perspective of the arts.

Wu expects courts at all levels to attach high importance to and support creative literary descriptions of courts’ work, and confirms that the CWA will spare no efforts to support the development of the federation.

The China Judges’ Federation of Literature and Art is a national level social organization voluntarily formed by court workers who are enthusiastic about and good at literature and art, including those from the literary and art federations of high and secondary courts. The establishment was approved by the Ministry of civil affairs in March 2022.