The Supreme People’s Court (SPC), China’s top court, on March 28 reviewed and approved in principle a guideline on breaking the judgment enforcement bottleneck in the next two to three years.

SPC President Zhou Qiang said the judiciary plans to break the bottleneck in the years to come through greater reform and innovation in judgment enforcement mechanisms, better use of information technology in supervising enforcement and increased punishment of those who fail to honor their legal obligations.

Difficulties in enforcing judgments have long been a huge challenge for Chinese courts, hurting the legal rights and interests of litigants who have won lawsuits, and adversely and severely affecting judicial credibility, Zhou said.

The SPC found that the public’s legal awareness has greatly improved with China’s advances in the rule of law, and that litigants are increasingly voluntary in honoring their legal obligations stipulated in valid judgments.

On the other hand, Chinese courts are speeding up the construction of information-sharing systems that cover the whole country and various forms of property to facilitate enforcement supervision. These advances have contributed to a major breakthrough in quickly identifying those who are subject to judgments as well as recovering assets. Moreover, those who fail to honor their judgment obligations are subject to being blacklisted and punished. These measures have helped create favorable conditions for breaking the bottleneck, Zhou said.

Nevertheless, there remains a long way to go and greater efforts will have to be made. He urged courts at various levels to steadily push forward the work in this regard.

Effective measures should be taken to curb phenomena such as litigants escaping their obligations by refusing to obey judgments, or courts enforcing them in a passive, procrastinating or selective manner and without regard to relevant rules, or under the influence of external interference. Efforts will also be made to encourage the general public to understand, respect and assist in judgment enforcement.

Chinese courts will further improve informatization and provide litigants and the general public with all-round, diversified and real-time services in a bid to promote transparency in this area. Supervision networks that include financial institutions will be enhanced to boost work efficiency, lower implementation costs and ensure security of financial assets. In addition, a credibility system jointly developed with other government departments and organizations will further expand the scope of punishment of those who fail to honor their obligations according to law.