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China's courts fight crime and judge shortage

Posted on: Saturday, 11 March 2006, 00:46 CST

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - The number of people China convicted last year grew as fast as the national economy, but a shortage of judges means the courts are clogging up, the Chinese chief justice told parliament on Saturday.

The president of the Supreme People's Court, Xiao Yang, told the National People's Congress that in 2005 courts had sentenced 844,717 citizens, a rise of 10 percent over 2004. China's economy grew 9.9 percent in 2005.

He said 131,869 people were sentenced to jail terms of 5 years or longer, including death penalties -- a fall of about 14,000 on last year. Xiao did not specify how many were executed.

China does not release numbers of how many citizens it executes each year. Human rights group Amnesty International estimated that in 2004 the courts issued death sentences to at least 6,000 citizens, and probably many more.

Xiao said courts in the wealthy coastal regions and big cities were overwhelmed with cases, while those in the poorer west had been losing young judges to more lucrative work.

Chinese citizens are increasingly turning to courts for redress, and Xiao reported that citizens continued to "complain quite fiercely" about judges' failure to enforce judgements.

"Coordinating and balancing public powers against the rights of citizens, corporations and other organizations are becoming issues of widespread social concern," Xiao said.

Parliamentary deputies also said judicial abuses were a widespread concern.

"Although the courts are doing a good job, there is still a public perception problem, especially as there are cases where the judges are corrupt or of poor quality," Zhang Yumei, a deputy from the eastern province of Anhui, told Reuters.

Chief Justice Xiao said that by the end of 2006 all appeals against death penalties would receive court hearings when doubts about important facts and evidence were raised. Currently, Chinese judges consider many such appeals in writing.

But Xiao also promised to "strike hard" against crime, a stock phrase used in harsh law-and-order crackdowns.

Xiao gave his report in the cavernous Great Hall of the People, a few minutes' walk from the police ministry's new headquarters, a building that rivals it in ostentatious grandeur.

But even in the Communist Party-controlled parliament, some members have voiced demands for far-reaching legal reform to restrain state power.

China must place all power, including the Party's, under the control of the constitutional rule of law, said Bai Gang, a member of the advisory council that meets alongside parliament.

"Realizing rule of law demands firmly ensuring the supremacy of the constitution. All state organs, social groups and citizens must obey the constitution," he said in a speech he provided to Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard)

Source: REUTERS

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