Supreme People's Court President Zhang Jun gives a lecture at the 2024 spring semester opening ceremony of the National Judges College in Beijing on March 19. [Photo/court.gov.cn]

Zhang Jun, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), delivered a lecture on improving the quality and efficacy of case handling at the 2024 spring semester opening ceremony of the National Judges College in Beijing on March 19.

Zhang said that judicial staff nationwide should strive to enhance their abilities in strengthening political awareness, upholding judicial fairness, proactively performing duties, managing adjudication and implementing work arrangements, so as to improve the quality and efficacy of case handling, constantly strengthen the building of judicial capability and develop a specialized team with loyalty, integrity, and sense of responsibility. 

The attendants listen to Zhang's lecture at the 2024 spring semester opening ceremony of the National Judges College in Beijing on March 19. [Photo/court.gov.cn]

Zhang urged judges nationwide to handle cases in accordance with the law while properly addressing relevant disputes arising from the cases, in a bid to serve the high-quality economic and social development through adjudication.

Zhang noted that clear facts and sufficient evidence are the foundation of judicial fairness. He stressed the importance of adhering to the principle of "quality coming before efficiency" in case trials, and emphasized the need to resolve disputes substantively and efficiently, and use legal language that is understandable to the litigants.

When talking about enhancing proactive performance of duties，Zhang called for more efforts in both litigation-source governance and case handling to resolve disputes at the early stage and promote law-based governance.

Courts at all levels should fully tap the role of the online case database in unifying standards of judgments, enhancing judicial capacity and strengthening supervision and guidance on adjudication, Zhang said.

Regarding adjudication management, Zhang said that heads of courts and tribunals should proactively shoulder the responsibility, effectively carrying out case review and conducting data consultations to pool wisdom in addressing issues, in order to achieve expected outcomes.

To enhance the overall capability of courts in implementing work arrangements, Zhang stressed the sense of responsibility, the people-centered principle and improvement of the mechanism for better implementation.

The construction of grassroots courts with relatively weak implementation ability should be strengthened and efforts should be made to resolutely implement the arrangements made by the Communist Party of China Central Committee on judicial reform, continuously deepen reforms and improve specific measures to support reforms, Zhang said.