The standing committee of the National People’s Congress adopted (in Chinese) a draft amendment to the Civil Procedure Law of China on October 28, 2007, and the amendment will come into effect on April 1, 2008.
Aimed at solving persistent problems with the enforcement of civil judgments, the Amendment has been expected to improve the execution of court rulings. The following sheds some light on the background of the adoption of the Amendment:
Chinese courts found that in 2006, 2.13 million civil case rulings had not been carried out by the due date. Almost half of those rulings have still not been implemented, and the verdicts remain empty words on a piece of judicial paper.
The amendment multiplies by a factor of ten fines for those who refuse to execute a civil court ruling -- fines climb from 1,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan (1300 U.S. dollars) for individual offenders, and from 30,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan (39,000 U.S. dollars) for companies.
The law also said that those who refuse to cooperate with civil courts in making sure a ruling is executed may be detained.
Hopefully, the Amendment will give the Civil Procedure Law some sharp teeth, and one can only hope those charged with the authority and duty to carry out enforcement duties will actually “bite” hard.
Read this for more background info regarding the Amendment.
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