III. Next steps

Courts in China will continue to strictly implement the central government’s direction, improve the awareness of protecting the rights of litigants to appeal, and further promote the reform of the case registration and filing system.

a. To eliminate false litigation, including malicious and unreasonable cases. All the courts in China, the medium-level and grassroots courts in particular, should increase their work in case filing chambers, give full play to their judging function, and refuse to hear such cases in accordance with the law and the SPC’s requirements of the reform of the case registration and filing system.

b. To protect people’s legitimate rights and interests and solve the problem of petition through letters and visits in accordance with law. After the implementation of the case registration and filing system, the number of litigation-related petitions through letters and visits is increasing. On the one hand, there has been dramatic growth in lawsuits begun by procedural petitions through letters and visits that have been rejected or not been processed.

On the other hand, the actual number of cases that courts handle is growing and petitions through letters and visits are bound to rise. In order to deal with the new changes brought by the case registration and filing system reform, the SPC has ordered all courts in China to solve the low efficiency in handling cases, correct the misjudged cases and defects, resolve conflicts and safeguard the litigants’ legitimate rights and interests while maintaining the authority of judicial jurisdiction.

c. To improve publicity and popularization and gain more support from people of all walks of life. With the help of various means like news conferences, the SPC will publicize the case registration and filing system, continue to lead litigants to use the right of appeal according to law, explain the premise that for people’s courts to file a case it must be handled in accordance with law, making the reform understood and accepted by people generally and enhancing the awareness of the rule of law in society.

d. To innovate the litigation service modes and promote online litigation service. Courts at all levels will strive to promote informatization and online litigation services nationwide to meet the requirements of the Internet era efficiently. Meanwhile, they will continuously intensify their attitude of service to the people.