The Beijing High People's Court made fairness and efficiency the key focus in its work and will continue reforms to build a more competent body of judges in the coming year, according to the court sources.
At the beginning of this year, the high court adopted a code of conduct for judges, requiring them to strictly abide by the principle of impartiality in their work, refrain from contacting parties involved in lawsuits or voicing personal opinions on lawsuits before judgments are made.
Meanwhile, several district courts introduced a new system in which assistants look after minor matters so that judges will have more time to improve the quality and efficiency of trials.
Other reforms on the list include the enhancement of on-the-job training and a more effective disciplinary system with rules intended to prevent malpractice among judges.
Niu Ke, a spokesman with the High People's Court who reviewed this year's judicial reforms, said: "We hope the enhancement of ethics and the management and supervision of judges will help ensure that justice is done."
Though encouraged by the improvements achieved over past years, Niu said it was an undeniable fact that unqualified judicial functionaries and illegal external interference were the main causes of miscarriages of justice.
"The variety and complexity of disputes that we are now faced with have put judicial fairness under challenge and have made the efficiency of the judiciary a focus of public attention," said Niu. "And to achieve judicial fairness and efficiency, reform is the only road to follow."
Liu Yumin, another official at the Beijing High People's Court, said the areas that the new reform would address had become bottlenecks in the efforts to promote fairness and efficiency in the courts.
He said to improve the general quality of judges was the prime task for courts next year.
"We hope the reform of the recruitment system for judges will help establish a stricter system for entering the profession and a better training system will improve the proficiency of judges," said Liu.
China's court system was largely dismantled during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and was restored only a little more than two decades ago.
Non-professionals with limited knowledge about the law were recruited in the 1980s when the nation was faced with a dearth of legal professionals as well as a rapidly increasing number of cases, Liu said.
(China Daily December 18, 2002)
