VII. Strengthening People-friendly Justice

Justice for the people and judicial justice are the main content of the people’s courts’ work. The SPC has been actively building an open, dynamic, transparent and people-friendly judicial mechanism in sunshine. Through reforming the case acceptance system, improving national judicial aid system, promoting litigation service center and people’s tribunal construction, and improving diversified dispute settlement mechanism, the SPC has been unceasingly improving people-friendly judicial mechanism.

To reform case acceptance system of courts. For the purpose of legally safeguarding the right of action of the party concerned and solving the issue of “difficult to file case”, the SPC has reformed the case acceptance system of courts, which reforms the case-filing review system into the case-filing registration system. As a result, for those cases that should be accepted by the people’s courts, the people’s courts will accept each of them and deal with each claim. The case-filing registration system takes effect as of May 1, 2015. Thereafter, the people’s courts will accept all the complaints submitted by the parties concerned as long as such complaints satisfy the form requirements and will handle such complaints within the statutory time limit. From May to December, there are more than 9.944 million filing cases registered by all the courts in China, increasing 29.54% YoY. The percentage of filing case registered on the spot reaches 95%, among which, civil cases increase 26.45% YoY, administrative cases 66.51% and criminal private prosecution cases 58.66%. According to the general opinions of all sectors of society, by the implementation of the case-filing registration system, they feel more comprehensiveness in the protection of litigation rights, more convenience for people to participate in litigation and more sunlight in the adjudication work of courts.

To strengthen the construction of the litigation services center. For the purpose of facilitating the people to institute lawsuits, the SPC has issued the Guiding Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of Litigation Services Center in People’s Courts. Relying on the modern information technology, litigation service platforms such as litigation service hall, people’s court litigation service website, 12368 litigation service hotline, and mobile applications have been established to meet the diversified judicial demands of the people. Local courts in different regions set up litigation service centers successively to integrate various external business of courts which externally serves the society and people and internally serves judges and enhances adjudication efficiency. Anhui High People’s Court, through building a comprehensive, stereoscopic, multi-dimensional litigation service new model, promotes the construction of Anhui courts litigation service center and carries out management in a scientific, people-friendly and information way, The people’s courts at three levels in Jiangsu Province set up a unified 12368 litigation service platform which contains multi-functions such as litigation service, case-filing registration, and litigation-related petition. There are several working modules on such platform, including online case-filing, online payment, submission of materials, case inquiries, contact with judges, online complaint, online petition letter, online review of case files and appointment of audio recording. Luohu Primary People’s Court in Shenzhen, Guangdong has built WeChat official account platforms. It is convenient for the people to handle application for online case-filing, inquire the case progress, obtain litigation guidance and inquire credit record, etc.

To push forward people’s tribunal construction. The SPC has issued the Opinions on Further Strengthening the Work of Peoples Tribunals under New Situation which proactively promotes the tribunal structure characterized with center tribunals as primary courts and community tribunals and institutions for circuit trial as secondary courts and optimizes the geographic layout and personnel proportion of the people’s courts. Each primary people’s court will take into consideration the actual conditions of its own jurisdiction to construct direct case-filing working mechanism of people’s court in a scientific way. Chongqing High People’s Court requires that except for highly professional cases, all the cases may be accepted by the people’s tribunals directly for the convenience of the people to bring lawsuit right on the spot, which really alleviates the troubles of bringing a lawsuit. In the last three years, all the people’s courts in Chongqing have closed 183,574 civil cases in total, accounting for 25% of the total closed cases of first instance in all Chongqing courts. Given the fact that the rural areas of Chongqing have high mountains and steep cliffs which are not easily accessible by transportation, Chongqing courts have established 272 people-friendly litigation stations and 1,142 people-friendly contact sites and hired 6,227 people-friendly contact persons. The people living there could resolve their disputes without going out of their villages and could complete their lawsuits without going out of their towns.

To improve diversified dispute resolution mechanism. In April 2015, the SPC convened a promotion meeting of nationwide courts on the diversified dispute resolution mechanism reform work. In the meeting, 50 courts in China have been designated as demonstrative courts and the modern dispute resolution concept of “guidance by the State, promotion by the judiciary, participation by society with diversified measures and guarantee by rule of law” has been established, thus comprehensively deploying the reform work over the diversified dispute resolution mechanism. Firstly, various forms of litigation and mediation docking mechanism with standard operation shall be established. The systems of case diversion, pre-trial mediation, designated mediation, entrusted mediation, guest mediation and judicial confirmation shall be given full play. Secondly, to innovate efficient, convenient, flexible and open litigation and mediation connection method and fully make use of “internet +” technology to construct all-dimensional, multi-tiered, comprehensive dispute resolution network system so as to enhance dispute resolution efficiency. Thirdly, to improve the litigation and mediation docking relationship having solid foundations and benign interaction. The convergence mechanism between courts and administrative organs, people’s mediation organizations, industry mediation organizations, commercial mediation organizations and arbitration institutions shall be ameliorated to build a scientifically and systematically diversified dispute resolution system. In September 2015, the SPC and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission jointly designated 24 courts and units as demonstrative courts/units of litigation and mediation docking for insurance dispute resolution. This has produced replicable and propagable experience for the construction of dispute resolution mechanism in other fields. Meishan Intermediate People’s Court of Sichuan Province has fully mobilized and utilized all kinds of dispute resolution resources, and in 2014 solved 81.12% disputes by non-litigation methods, making cases that really go through trial procedures and are solved by adjudication only accounted for 5.19%, and has therefore formed the “Meishan experience” in litigation and non-litigation docking mechanism. Yuelu Primary People’s Court in Changsha, Hunan has solved a great number of disputes outside litigation process, by means of the improved pre-trial mediation procedure for certain types of cases, and the “trinity” dispute resolution mode of “pre-trial diversion, entrustment (of mediation) during the trial and judicial confirmation” that fully utilizes social mediation power. Judicial resources have been saved and judicial efficiency has been enhanced.

To improve national judicial aid system. The SPC together with other departments of the Central Government has published the Opinions on Improvement of the National Judicial Aid System. Local courts proactively explore the construction of a unified judicial aid processing mechanism and improve the national judicial aid system for case parties who have hardship in life and suffered harm from crimes or civil infringement but failing to obtain effective aid. In 2014 and 2015, the Central Government and local administrations have arranged total aid funds of RMB2.47 billion and RMB2.949 billion respectively. There are over 80,000 parties concerned which have received judicial aid in 2014.

To improve litigation-related petition work. In order to further strengthen and improve the litigation-related petition work and facilitate the people to lodge a lawsuit, the SPC has been strengthening the information construction of petition. The long-distance video petition acceptance system of the SPC launched in May 2014. The accepting judges can use the long-distance petition acceptance system to communicate “vis-à-vis” on behalf of the SPC with the court of first instance and the person who files a petition. Since its use from May of 2014, this system has completed more than 8,200 petition communications which greatly alleviates the troubles of running around of the people. In February 2014, the SPC launched an online complaint petition platform. Upon filling in the complaint petition information and submission of pertinent materials, the party concerned has completed the online complaint petition and may thereafter log on to inquire the progress and the feedbacks of the complaint petition at all times and places. The online complaint petition platform has unblocked the complaint petition channel and alleviated people’s burden. Upon the launch of the long-distance acceptance system and the online complaint petition system, a 33.6% YoY decrease of both the batches and persons visiting Beijing for petition has been witnessed.