The Leading Party Members Group of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) convened a meeting to review its work to beef up primary courts with relatively insufficient capabilities.

Zhang Jun, secretary of the Leading Party Members Group and president of the SPC, presided over the meeting, highlighting the need to consolidate achievements in this regard and make constant efforts to solidify the foundation for the long-term development of courts.

Since 2024, the SPC has launched a nationwide campaign to enhance the development of primary courts with insufficient capabilities. During this initiative, courts in need of enhancement were identified and compiled into a list. After a year of dedicated work, many of these courts on the list have undergone a significant transformation, with prominent improvements, where weak links have been shored up, and management mechanisms as well as the efficiency and quality of litigation enhanced.

Based on the evaluation scheme approved by the SPC's Leading Party Members Group, a total of 84 courts with insufficient capabilities were removed from the list by the end of 2024, while an additional 100 courts will be added to the list for further improvement.

The meeting outlined requirements for further advancing the beefing-up campaign.

Upon reflecting on the root causes of the courts’ weaknesses, participants in the meeting highlighted the lack of effective leadership by key officials and inadequate implementation of rigorous Party governance over the courts. They also identified weak links in team building and infrastructure as causes and stressed the importance of addressing these issues with targeted solutions in future work.

It was emphasized at the meeting that experience accumulated during the first stage of the campaign should be widely used in future work. For instance, judicial supervision and data analysis have been leveraged to identify and rectify the weaknesses in adjudication management and team building in order to tackle existing problems at their root.

Participants also highlighted the need of follow-up review to consolidate the achievements of the campaign. For courts that have been successfully removed from the list, continuous support and guidance are essential to maintain their sustained development. Courts that have shown improvement during the campaign but later regressed from the enhanced standards will be reevaluated and receive further attention and support. Courts that have yet to show much improvement and remain on the list will receive dedicated attention and support from the SPC’s leading officials to accelerate their progress towards enhancement.