Courts to blacklist institutions that improperly review evidence

China's top court on Aug 14 said courts will be required to build a blacklist of professional institutions involved in improper evidence authentication so as to strengthen supervision and avoid problems that can affect the quality of case hearings.

This requirement was raised by the Supreme People's Court in a guideline on evidence authentication in civil litigation, and it is the first time that the country's top court clarified the establishment of such a blacklist in a legal document.

Huang Wenjun, director of the top court's Judicial Equipment Administration Bureau, said that it is crucial that courts can entrust institutions to use its technologies to professionally identify items as evidence, but some problems still exist in practice.

"For example, some courts were found to be lacking in reviews of these institutions, and some institutions were discovered to have improperly or even illegally authenticate items of evidence for profits," he said. "These irregularities seriously obstruct justice and needs to be solved urgently."

He noted that the blacklist serves as a tool to regulate the activities of authentication institutions, adding that those on the list will not appear in the information databases of the courts.