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)