China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) has just issued a set of
new regulations to improve effectiveness in enforcing court
rulings.
The new regulations set a time limit of six months for executing
court rulings involving property.
Applications to defer an execution must be submitted to the SPC
five days ahead of the deadline.
Court officials should instruct the parties concerned to report
and register their properties within three days of receiving a
ruling, according to the regulations.
Courts should take prompt measures to prevent relevant parties
transferring, hiding, selling or damaging their properties during
the enforcement period.
Courts are asked to verify the exactitude of registered
properties within five days.
For those who cannot provide evidence, courts should start an
investigation 10 days after they submit their applications.
The income, bank deposits, securities, immovable properties,
vehicles, machinery, intellectual property rights, and investment
earnings of people affected by a court ruling should be
investigated -- as well as their debt situation -- and the
investigation should last no longer than one month.
The court is also obliged to host public hearings if the party
that applies to enforce a ruling is not satisfied with the
execution result.
All the legal documents and related materials, except those
involving state or commercial secrets, produced during the
enforcement period shall be made available to the parties concerned
for reference and copying.
The new regulations will help enhance the effectiveness and
transparency of the enforcement of court rulings, a knotty problem
in China, said an SPC official.
They will also help strengthen supervision of enforcement work
and ensure fairness, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)