Despite that there were frequent exposures of wronged court judgments in the past years, the number of public complaints against China's judicial system actually took a down turn in 2005, said China's top judge Xiao Yang in his work report delivered Saturday.

Local courts across the country received 3,995,244 letters, visits and calls of complaints in 2005, down 5.33 percent year-on- year. And 435,547 of them were against the misconduct of judges, Xiao said in his work report of the People's Supreme Court to the ongoing session of the Tenth National People's Congress.

"The number of complaints against courts and court staff, which was on the rise for years, began to drop for the first time last year," said Xiao, chief justice and president of the Supreme People's Court.

But China witnessed several shocking cases of misjudgments that came into spotlight in 2005, which prompted appeals for judicial reform.

One case involved She Xianglin, a former security guard who spent 11 years in jail for "murdering" his wife. He was finally announced innocent after his "dead" wife reappeared in her hometown.

In another case, Nie Shubin, a young farmer in North China's Hebei Province, was executed in 1994 after being convicted of raping and murdering a local woman. Early last year, however, a rape-and-murder suspect apprehended by police confessed that he was the one who committed that heinous crime 11 years ago.

Acknowledging legal loopholes, Xiao said the decrease of public complaints was the result of tangible efforts by Chinese courts to improve their work.

Many of the complaints raised last year were reconsidered by the courts, with 15,867 court decisions having been redressed so far, he said.

Due to the consistent anti-corruption drive within the judiciary, the number of law-breaking judges and prosecutors also decreased in 2005.

Last year, 378 judges were found to abuse power for personal interests and 66 were given criminal penalty according to law, 18 percent and 44.07 percent less than the previous year, Xiao said.

Jia Chunwang, procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, told the parliament that 292 prosecutors were probed for disciplinary violation in 2005, 15.4 percent down from the previous year.

Both the top judge and prosecutor-general admitted that the judicial organs are facing "protruding problems" or "quite a number of difficulties" in performing their duties.

Both of them mentioned the fact that "certain" judges and prosecutors abused power for personal gains, saying that some even went so far to pervert the law for the sake of nepotism and money. Considerable number of judges and prosecutors are not qualified and have failed to comply with due procedures as provided by the law, they said.

The top law-enforcement officials pledged to lawmakers in their reports that in 2006, they will press ahead with judicial reform, clamp down on internal corruption and improve the proficiency of judges and prosecutors.

Source: Xinhua