China will amend a law to address the long-standing problem of civil court rulings that are not carried out, according to the top legislative meeting on Sunday.

The draft amendment of Civil Procedure Law has been submitted to the standing committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, for examination and approval.

Chinese courts found that in 2006, 2.13 million civil case rulings had not been carried out by the due date. Almost half of those rulings have still not been implemented, and the verdicts remain empty words on a piece of judicial paper.

The draft amendment multiplies by a factor of ten fines for those who refuse to execute a civil court ruling -- fines climb from 1,000 to 10,000 yuan (US$1300) for individual offenders, and from 30,000 to 300,000 yuan (US$39,000) for companies.

The law also said that those who refuse to cooperate with civil courts in making sure a ruling is executed may be detained.

"The public are up in arms about the poor execution of verdicts," said Wang Shengming, an official with NPC's standing committee. "The amendment is necessary to safeguard the authority of justice."

(Xinhua News Agency June 25, 2007)