White paper enumerates China's judicial reform goals

China has made the establishment of an impartial, efficient and authoritative socialist judicial system one of the three fundamental objectives of its judicial reform, a white paper said Tuesday.

The paper, titled "Judicial Reform in China", said other objectives of the reform are to ensure courts and procuratorates exercise adjudicative power and procuratorial power fairly and independently, and to provide solid and reliable judicial guarantee for safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the people, social equity and justice, as well as lasting national stability.

Due to the profound changes in the judicial environment, judicial work in China is facing new situations and problems, according to the white paper, issued by the the State Council Information Office.

The defects and rigidity in China's current judicial system and its work mechanism are becoming increasingly prominent, and they need to be improved gradually through reform, it said.

The white paper stated that "China carries out judicial reform based on its national conditions."

"It adheres to the principle of overall planning and coordination, comprehensive designing, and proceeding in an orderly and gradual way," it read.

As early as in the 1980s, China had initiated reforms in court trials and promoted professionalism in the judicature, focusing on enhancing the function of court trials, expanding the openness of trials, improving attorney defense functions, and training professional judges and procurators.

In 2004, China launched large-scale judicial reforms based on overall planning, deployment and implementation.

The 2004 reform tackled issues that caused the strongest public complaints from the public and the key links that hamper judicial justice.

Through the reform, China improved the structure of its judicial organs, division of judicial functions and system of judicial management, established a judicial system featuring clearly defined power and responsibilities, mutual collaboration and mutual restraint, and highly efficient operation, according to the paper.

China initiated a new round of judicial reform since 2008.

During the 2008 reform, China aims to tackle problems in the key links that hamper judicial justice and restrain judicial capability, remove existing barriers in the institutional setup and operational mechanism as well as provision of legal guarantee, and put forward the specific tasks for judicial reform in four aspects -- optimizing the allocation of judicial functions and power, implementing the policy of balancing leniency and severity, building up the ranks of judicial workers, and ensuring judicial funding.

The tasks of the 2008 round of judicial reform have been basically completed, as relevant laws have been amended and improved, according to the white paper.