Court Divisions Become More SpecializedThe Supreme People's Court will establish special divisions to handle cases of intellectual property rights, maritime affairs and cases involving overseas parties, according to Chinadaily.The reforms will be taken in preparation for China's impending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), said Vice-President Zhu Mingshan of the court. "We expect that there will be a sharp upsurge of such cases after China enters the WTO," Zhu said Tuesday. Such cases are now tried by the court's economic and traffic divisions. Since these kinds of cases are relatively new in China, some judges are less proficient than their foreign counterparts. "These judges need to meet higher professional standards," Zhu commented. "They must be familiar with domestic laws, international conventions China has signed, common international practices and some laws of other countries." A five-year reform programme of Chinese courts that started late last year has set as one of its priorities the improvement of judge quality. If the programme is successful, all judges will have received professional training by the end of 2002. The structural reform of the Supreme People's Court, as unveiled Tuesday and expected to be copied by local courts, is also stressing the independent functioning of its divisions during case handling. With a new division to be responsible for deciding whether to investigate a case and another one to supervise trials, the court hopes to establish a fairer trial system. Court sources also believed that the new division will effectively reduce out-of-court contacts between judges and litigants. The other division should prevent potentially biased retrials by the same judges. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/ |