SPC announces evasion blacklist

China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) announced on Tuesday names of individuals and organizations on the court's "blacklist" for defying its verdicts on payments it had ordered in the past.

The "blacklist" contains names of 31,259 defaulters who failed to abide by civil compensation judgments although they had the ability to do so. There are 25,625 individuals and 5,634 organizations on the list.

Over half of the defaulters tried to defy the verdicts with threats, use of violence or through falsification of evidence, Sun Jungong, a spokesperson for the SPC, told reporters at a media conference on Tuesday in Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan province.

The SPC has shared the information with banks to forbid defaulters from getting loans. The "blacklist" has also been registered at government departments to make it hard for defaulters to get their businesses certified or participate in bidding for projects.

According to the statement, more companies and individuals are resorting to the list for background checks before reaching deals.

"It is a punishment for defaulters and a new attempt to expand judgment enforcement," Sun said.

The information in the government databases that was gathered by local courts includes names, identity numbers and addresses.

A total of 1,045 defaulters nationwide have already made payments since the system took effect on October 1.

The list has been made public on the SPC's website since October 24 and witnessed over 180,000 views as of Monday, Sun said, adding that defaulting judgments had become a major public concern.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, in July 2013, courts in Jiangxi Province said only 50 percent of judgments there had been fulfilled.

But once the names were out on the list, some Internet users questioned whether local courts could conceal cases to serve their own interest.

Liu Guixiang, chief of the enforcement bureau of the SPC, said that he could not rule out the possibility that some cases might not have made it to the list due to selective enforcement by some local courts.

"Our next step is to allow those who demand the return of money from the defaulters to apply to the SPC to blacklist the defaulters," Liu said.

In an effort to ensure credibility of the blacklisting system, the SPC will set up a team of inspectors to check the list submitted by local courts and re-examine 10 percent of those cases, he added.