Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), reiterated the need to improve the efficacy of trial and execution work, give better play to the functions of trials, and provide strong judicial services for a healthy, peaceful and clean economic, social and political environment. He made those remarks while presiding over an enlarged meeting of the leading Party members of the SPC on summarizing the trial and execution work performed in the first half of the year.

Statistics show that the first half of the year saw a year-on-year decrease in the number of new cases received by courts across the country, and a year-on-year increase in the number of closed cases. The first instance judgement acceptance rate had increased, and litigation-related petitioning rate had dropped, with sums involved in executions of court rulings reaching a historic height.

Zhou fully acknowledged courts’ work in the first half of the year in team building, judicial reform, one-stop service and smart court development, which has laid a solid foundation for meeting the whole year’s work targets.

He emphasized the need to fully recognize current work challenges, do a good job in safeguarding the nation’s political security, social stability, social justice and the people’s wellbeing, uphold the absolute leadership of the Party in judicial work, and strive for a solid implementation of the central authority’s decisions in the work of the people’s courts.

Zhou called for intensified efforts in trial and execution work to serve high-quality socioeconomic development, and stressed the need to fully implement a holistic approach to national security and foster a safe and and stable political and social environment for the successful holding of the 20th CPC National Congress.

Efforts are needed to regularly fight against gang crimes, crack down on online fraud, especially cases targeting seniors, in order to safeguard people’s lives and property, he noted. Courts need to continue to implement the judicial guidelines concerning pandemic-related cases and policies to help the development of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, so as to efficiently coordinate pandemic prevention and control with socioeconomic development, Zhou stressed.

There is a need to intensify IPR protection and improve anti-monopoly judgement rules to serve the building of a unified national market that is efficient, regulated, fair and open, he said. Zhou also emphasized the importance of spurring the vitality of market players through judicial measures, such as strengthening protections on property rights and the rights and interests of entrepreneurs.

He called for strengthening judicial protection over data technology application and digital economy, in order to foster an open, healthy and safe digital ecology.  He urged equally protecting the legitimate rights and interests of both domestic and foreign parties, and fostering a business environment that is market oriented, law-based and internationalized.

 Cases involving people's livelihoods should be appropriately handled, protections for groups such as college graduates, migrant workers and those in new employment forms should be strengthened, and employment discrimination against recovered COVID-19 patients should be resolutely prohibited, Zhou stressed, adding that the construction of the one-stop diversified dispute resolution and litigation service system needs to be advanced, and a comprehensive and source-oriented approach should be applied to solve those hard-to-execute cases, in a bid to deliver a timely cashing of the legitimate rights and interests of winning litigants.

Zhou also reiterated the need to intensify judicial reforms and advance smart court construction to improve the efficacy of trials and execution, and to be stringent in forging a judicial force with integrity and loyalty, and fight against judicial corruption with zero tolerance.