In this March 30, 2006 photo, two people stand in front of the Chinese Supreme People's Court building in Beijing, China. (STR / AFP)
BEIJING – Solid achievements have been made by Chinese courts in pushing forward judicial reform, as well as continuously promoting and advancing a just, efficient and authoritative judicial system, an official with China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) said on Friday.
Strong measures have been taken to tackle problems that harm judicial justice, said Shen Liang, a vice-president of the SPC, at a press conference on major achievements Chinese courts have made in related fields since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012.
READ MORE: Top court issues interpretation to protect foreign investors' rights
Chinese courts have been promoting the reform of the criminal procedure system with a focus on court proceedings
Shen Liang, Vice-president, Supreme People's Court, China
In 2015, China implemented a case filing register system, replacing the previous case filing review system, in a bid to lower the bar for case filing, Shen said. Currently, over 95.7 percent of cases can be filed on the spot, he said.
Acknowledging the pilot reform of imposing lenient penalties on those who admit their guilt and accept punishments in criminal cases, as well as the application of quick trials for simple cases and meticulous trials for complex lawsuits in civil litigation, Shen said such efforts were made to enhance the country's litigation system.
Chinese courts have been promoting the reform of the criminal procedure system with a focus on court proceedings and strictly adhering to the principles of legality, evidence-based verdicts and presumption of innocence, thereby institutionally ensuring that just verdicts are given to the guilty while the innocent are protected from criminal punishment, according to Shen.
ALSO READ: China to strengthen enforcement of court orders
China has also been optimizing the exercising of judicial powers, Shen said, noting that a certain number of assistants were assigned to judges, allowing the latter to focus on adjudicative work.