China's chief justice said in Beijing on Tuesday that the
efforts of Chinese courts in 2006 to crack down on criminal
activities of various kinds helped safeguard national security and
social stability, and promoted human rights protection.
In 2006, China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) handled a total of
3,668 cases involving a variety of crimes, up 14.77 percent over
the previous year, said SPC President Xiao Yang in a report on the judicial work,
delivered to the national legislature for examination.
Local courts at all levels heard and concluded 8,105,007 cases
in 2006, an increase of 2.07 percent year on year. Of the total, 2,
323 case involved state compensation amounting to 34.84 million
yuan (US$4.47 million), said Xiao.
Courts across the country in 2006 tried and concluded 245,254
criminal cases involving felonies like explosion, murder, robbery,
rape and kidnapping, and sentenced 340,715 criminals convicted in
such cases.
According to the top judge, Chinese judges in the past year also
handled 23,733 cases of embezzlement, bribery and dereliction of
duty, sentencing 825 convicted government officials above the
county level, including 9 provincial- and ministerial-level
officials.
Corruption and commercial bribery have become a prominent social
problem in China, arousing public anger and leading to the downfall
of a number of high-ranking officials, including former head of
National Statistics Bureau Qiu Xiaohua and former director of State
Food and Drug Administration Zheng Xiaoyu.
Chen Liangyu, former Party chief of Shanghai, China's economic
center, was also put under investigation for his involvement in a
major social security fund scandal, in which 3.7 billion yuan
(US$475 million) of the fund was found to be misused.
One of the most notorious convicted officials was Ding Xinfa, a
former provincial procurator-general of eastern Jiangxi Province,
who was sentenced to 17 years for bribery and embezzlement.
The disgraced list also included Li Dachang, former vice
governor of southwest Sichuan Province, who was sentenced to
seven-years in prison for power abuse.
Courts across the country in 2006 also tried and concluded
31,582 cases involving the manufacture, trafficking and sale of
narcotics, sentencing 37,256 criminals convicted in such cases.
In the area of intellectual property rights protection, Xiao
said that Chinese courts concluded 17,769 cases involving
intellectual property rights infringement in 2006, with 3,508
people convicted and sentenced.
"Among all criminals convicted in 2006, 153,724 received
sentences from five years and above in prison to life imprisonment
and death penalty," he told the nearly 3,000 lawmakers attending
the annual full session of the National People's
Congress.
Xiao said that Chinese courts at all levels, in their efforts to
respect and safeguard human rights, pronounced 1,713 criminal
defendants innocent in 2006, following the principle of meting out
penalty to the guilty and setting the innocent free in time in
accordance with the law.
Experiment on granting relief fund to victims of criminal cases
and their relatives went on smoothly, he said.
Statistics from the 10 higher people's courts carrying out the
pilot program showed they in total issued 7.80 million yuan in the
relief fund to 378 victims of criminal cases and their relatives in
2006.
One of the major developments in the field of human rights
protection lies in the reform of the mechanism to decide on death
penalties.
Xiao said the supreme court took back the power to review and
ratify all death penalty cases as of January 1, 2007, ending a 26-
year practice of letting courts at lower levels decide on part of
such cases.
To make lawsuits affordable to all people, Chinese courts have
provided timely judicial assistance to litigants with financial
difficulties, Xiao said.
As a result, 282,582 people were allowed to delay or reduce the
payment of court costs, or even totally exempted from the costs in
2006, with a total of 1.2 billion yuan spared for them, he
noted.
The top judge also reported a 4.71 percent drop in the number of
letters, visits and calls of complaints and petitions the supreme
court received from the general public in 2006 compared to the
previous year. The supreme court received 140,511 such letters,
visits and calls in the year.
Meanwhile, local courts across the country received 3,548,504
such letters, visits and calls, a decrease of 11.18 percent year on
year.
The supreme court also intensified its efforts to fight
corruption among judges and promote judicial justice, said the top
judge.
"A total of 292 judges were found to have abused power for
personal interests in 2006, and 109 of them were given criminal
penalty according to law," he said.
In 2006, Chinese courts at all levels handled 7,375 maritime
cases involving 4.445 billion yuan, giving equal protection to the
legitimate rights and interests of Chinese and foreign nationals
involved, said the SPC president.
The courts also concluded 23,313 cases involving foreign
nationals and residents of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in 2006, an
increase of 16.39 percent year on year, he added.
Apart from the courts' achievements, the top judge also raked up
problems pestering the country's judicial work, such as unfair
judgment and failure in providing timely protection to the
legitimate rights and interests of some litigants who had won their
lawsuits.
He attributed the problems to the poor capability of some
judges, a lack of professional ethics among some others, and the "
malpractice of a small handful of judges and senior court
officials".
"We will take even stronger measures to make improvement" and
"guarantee the power of judgment is exercised correctly", said
Xiao, adding that the supreme court will strive to ensure the
legitimate rights and interests of all litigants are well protected
and the professional quality of Chinese judges as a whole improved
substantially.
China's Judicial Work in 2006
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2007)