Shenzhen urged to explore, innovate legal services

A raft of legal measures to support courts in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, were announced by China's top court on Monday to help build the city into a demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The measures, including strengthening trials of new-type intellectual property disputes, intensifying hearings of financial cases and diversifying resolutions of cross-bordered commercial conflicts, have been written into a guideline issued by the Supreme People's Court on Monday.

The guideline aims to encourage legal explorations and innovations in Shenzhen, improving the quality and capacity of case hearings in the city's courts, especially when handling disputes on maritime, IP rights and bankruptcy as well as dealing with legal affairs involving foreign countries and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, according to Yang Wanming, vice-president of the top court.

Courts in Shenzhen are required to take advantage of technologies to make their litigation-related services "smarter", said the guideline, which has six parts consisting of 33 articles. It also asks judges in the city to better protect legitimate rights of entrepreneurs and increase efforts to educate legal talents, he said.

"The guideline highlights the significance of rule of law in building the demonstration area, as the rule is good to help the city solve legal difficulties in the reforms," he said, adding the latest judicial document is also to implement central leadership's requirements on Shenzhen's development.