It is Thursday morning in the eastern wing of Shanghai Pudong New Area District People's Court. The crowd is swelling. The din it creates is rising. Such a scene has become common since late February when the court began offering legal counseling to litigants eager to settle disputes in the court.
Zhang Yunlan walks up to a clerk in a side room off the entrance. The 47-year-old department store sales assistant says she wants to split an apartment with her divorced husband and their son. The clerk presses the screen on a ticket dispenser and out comes a small piece of paper. He gives it to Zhang. The paper has her queue number, according to which she will be called to present her case before a judicial clerk.
The sales assistant takes a seat near an inquiry desk. Her turn comes after 10 minutes. She explains her case to a clerk behind the desk, and is told that she could go to one of the counters further inside the hall to file litigation. Or, she could go into another room on the other side of the hall to seek mediation. The second process could be faster and cost less. Zhang is also told that she would get help to prepare the documents she needs to file litigation, if needed.
Zhang enters the mediation room and sets up an appointment for Monday. "I'm totally ignorant about legal proceedings but would like to take the cheaper way to settle the dispute," she says.
Legal proceedings are complicated, says judge Zhu Min. That is why counseling is so important.
Shift to another potential litigant Liu Jianhong. The 35-year-old Shanghai resident is sitting behind a desk next to Zhang. He tells judge Zhu that he is happy the court has admitted his plea for divorce. But he is confused why it did not mention about an apartment.
"The apartment belongs to me but my ex-wife secretly changed the ownership in her parents' names," he says. "I want the apartment back."
Judge Zhu tells Liu that he needs to file another litigation to decide the apartment's ownership.
"People who come to seek advice from judges either don't understand the verdicts because they have a lot of legal terms, or they are not happy with the results," Zhu says. "Some of them want to know how the verdicts are going to be enforced And my responsibility is to make them understand."
Between Feb 27 and April 4, Zhu has received 46 visitors. One of the court's many efforts is directed at redressing litigants' grievances, as well as relieving judges' heavy workload. This has become very important because the number of litigations has increased manifold, says a judge with Shanghai Pudong New Area District People's Court and deputy director of its litigation registration department Bao Lei.
A State Supreme Court work report, issued in March, shows the country's courts handled 31.78 million cases between 2003 and 2007, 1.59 percent more than that between 1998 and 2002. Cases in Shanghai courts, however, have increased at the rate of 10 percent a year during the same period.
The nature of cases has widened, too. Take the case of an elderly woman. She fell down in a public toilet on a rainy day in 2006. Blaming those operating the facility for her injuries, she sued them for damages and won the case.
Then there is the case of Shanghai restaurateur Dong Rongting. He won about 2 million yuan ($286,000) in a high-profile case against a city agent who failed to deliver a car he had ordered on time.
Dong dragged the agent to court for a faulty battery too, alleging he had switched it. He lost the second case, and filed a third against an organization, which he alleged had given him wrong information that cost him the second case. He lost the third case too.
Dong's second and third cases are exceptions rather than the rule. But more and more people are turning to courts to settle their disputes. This is a dramatic change from the days when the country had just begun its reform and opening up.
"Traditionally, Chinese people would go to their employers or the administration for reparation in case of disputes," says East China University for Political Science and Law professor Wang Junmin. "They used to think going to court brought ill luck. It was even considered an act of shame."
But as society continues to develop rapidly, more conflicts are coming to the fore. Hence, "to settle the disputes, people today would rather talk to judges, instead of lawyers because their services are expensive," Wang says.
There, however, is a problem here. The cases have risen much faster than the increase in the number of judges, Bao says. Since the number of cases has been growing very fast throughout the country, courts have begun exploring new ways to offer more effective judicial services to the people. The one in Pudong, for instance, became the first to offer pre-litigation consultation services.
Most of the country's courts have introduced pre-litigation mediation, a procedure in which the parties to a dispute try to reach an agreement in the presence of a mediator. If the agreement leaves one of the parties unhappy or dissatisfied, he, she or they would then be free to file a suit.
The number of cases settled out of court in Pudong touched 6,990 last year, with an agreement being reached in 4,863 of them. Some cases can be settled even in one day. "Most of such cases settled in our court are on divorce or disputes over property," Bao says. But "since the promulgation of the new labor law, more labor disputes are also being filed".
All Shanghai courts began offering guidance on how to file lawsuits in 2003. As part of their functions, they also have non-trial services such as audits, auctions, evaluations on verdict enforcements and bankruptcy, and publishing statements in newspapers for the loss of important documents.
In March last year, the Pudong court set up a non-trial services to help litigants. In December, Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Court followed the pioneering effort to set up a similar center.
By the end of last year, the center in Pudong court had received more than 14,800 visitors. Of these, 1,732 sought information on how to file litigation, 6,368 asked the center to pass on judges' evidence and documents, 2,919 submitted appeals and 901 wanted to check the series number and the presiding judges of their cases.
In February, the court added one more service - that of explaining the verdicts. Bao says most litigants often visit judges during the proceedings to enquire about matters such as submitting evidence or documents. But "according to law, a judge can talk to a litigant only in the presence of a clerk", Bao says. "And judges and clerks are not always available because of their busy schedule. Very often litigants find it difficult to meet or talk with a judge even over the phone, which makes them very unhappy."
The center responds to litigants' enquiries for which they often run to their presiding judges, and integrates all non-trial services provided by the court. It helps set up appointments with judges if and when necessary. It eases judges' workload and allows them to concentrate on their primary responsibility of hearing cases and passing judgments. Also, it helps people who go to court get better services.
Bao says the center has eased the work burden of judges substantially.
"Some judges have told me that they receive fewer phone calls from litigants (today) and have more time to work on cases And everyone who comes to the court gets the attention and guidance that they need and almost all the answers they seek."
Source: China Daily
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