Court pledges to ensure defaulters obey verdicts

Beijing's No 1 Intermediate People's Court pledged on Wednesday to create a long-term mechanism that will ensure verdicts are implemented more effectively, building on its success over the past three years.

"Carrying out verdicts is important in protecting litigants' rights and will be effective to create a legal business environment in the capital, so we must take more measures to consolidate the achievements," said Wu Zaicun, president of the court.

Since 2016, when the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, promised to spend two or three years to solve the problem of people refusing to comply with verdicts — which was a serious complaint by members of the public — the intermediate people's court has strengthened efforts to correct the situation. It has worked with other authorities to urge placing limits on scofflaws' daily lives.

Over the past three years, for example, the court made 1,773 decisions in which it barred defaulters from high-end consumption, such as buying luxury goods, and blacklisted individuals and companies that refused to comply with verdicts in 804 cases.

A rule made by the top court makes the personal information of blacklisted individuals and companies, including names, identity card numbers and the facts of their cases, subject to disclosure online.

Beyond the consumption restrictions, defaulters are banned by another regulation from buying tickets for travel by air or high-speed railway.

The intermediate people's court also opened an online sharing system with 87 banks across the capital, "which has helped us find more than 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) of defaulters' available savings and give us a quick, accurate and convenient channel to control or freeze the assets or other property," said Ma Laike, vice-president of the court.

Although the court has made progress against defaulters, both officials said the efforts are not enough.

"We have to make a long-term mechanism to uphold the result and to further ensure rulings can be implemented more effectively," Wu said.

Ma added that the court would upgrade the system on property searches and improve cooperation with public security authorities to prevent defaulters from leaving the country.

"Meanwhile, we'll increase punishments against defaulters, such as giving them detention and fines to induce them carry out our rulings as soon as possible," he said.

Creating a long-term mechanism for enforcement also was written into a report submitted by Zhou Qiang, president of the country's top court, to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the top legislature, in April.

The report said courts across the country have been ordered to continue their efforts to ensure verdict implementation and deepen enforcement reform instead of fighting defaulters through campaigns.