At a national conference organized by the Supreme People's Court, Zhu Mingshan also said that the courts will continue to push for action against corruption and dereliction of duty by officials.

Other areas that the courts aim to tackle include the further reform of trial procedures to guarantee fairness and efficiency in the handling of cases, and putting more effort into improving the quality of the nation's judges.

Also on Zhu's list of priorities were cases involving fake and shoddy products, the infringement on intellectual property rights, smuggling, financial fraud, fraud in export rebates and value-added taxes, and major workplace accidents caused by negligence.

"The courts should punish according to the law criminals who have seriously disrupted the social and market order as well as officials who have participated in crimes and sheltered the criminals,'' Zhu said Monday, on the first day of the three-day conference.

Statistics from the Supreme People's Court indicate that, in the first 10 months of this year, judges across the nation concluded more than 147,000 cases involving crimes that disrupted the social order and another 11,000 dealing with crimes that disrupted the market order.

China's courts are expected to face increasing pressure next year with a bigger case load relating to the financial, leasing, banking and securities sectors as well as intellectual property rights, anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases involving government departments in the wake of Beijing's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Zhu stressed that citizens' legitimate rights should be protected equally to guarantee fair competition in the market.

The five-year reform plan of the Supreme People's Court will enter its fourth year next month and the court has pledged to put more effort into enforcing judicial fairness and improving efficiency.

Also at the conference Monday, Xiao Yang -- president of the Supreme People's Court -- told judges from local high courts that they should use the opportunity of China's WTO entry to forge ahead with judicial reform.

"Whether the reform is successful or not hinges upon whether it can guarantee the independent and fair implementation of the judicial power of courts according to the law and improve quality and efficiency in trials,'' Xiao said.

Xiao said that next year's reforms will focus on areas such as the enhancement of supervision over trials by higher courts and different level of the People's Congress, improvement of the rules on evidence, and the increased use of summary procedures in handling cases in an effort to improve efficiency.

(China Daily December 18, 2001)