Special benches improve quality of hearings

In the past year, in addition to making efforts to promote tourism and protect the environment via improved legal services, Jiangxi province has encouraged courts to improve the quality and efficiency of financial hearings.

In October, Nanchang Intermediate People's Court in Jiangxi opened two specialized courts, one in Donghu district and the other in Xihu district, to deal with financially related civil suits, such as those involving credit cards, insurance, securities and loan contracts.

"The move is aimed at avoiding financial risks, boosting Nanchang's economy and dealing with the rise in financial disputes related to construction and development in the city in recent years," said Tao Ran, head of the financial court in Xihu. He said that more than 80 percent of financial disputes in the city occur in Xihu and Donghu, "so the establishment of these specialized courts to improve the efficiency of hearings is a must".

So far, the two courts have accepted 10,138 cases, and 8,770 of them have been resolved, according to a statement from the intermediate people's court.

Liu Yingsheng, Tao's colleague, said the financial courts have helped to speed up related case hearings and also contributed greatly to the regulation of financial entities in the local market.

"Before, if a single plaintiff - for example, a bank - accused a large number of defendants of the same thing, such as defaulting on loan repayments, it had to bring several lawsuits and many judges had to be appointed to oversee the separate cases. However, since the establishment of the financial courts, disputes such as these are 'packaged' - that is, all heard together in the same court - because the problems and the plaintiff are the same. That saves time for both plaintiffs and judges," he said.

Xiong Jun, from the Nanchang branch of China Everbright Bank, said, "Judicial officials at the financial courts often share tips on how to better resolve financial disputes, which influences our behavior when signing contracts with clients.

"The rising legal awareness has helped us reduce the number of unnecessary disputes and control the financial risks right from the start."

Liu said that by the end of the year, the financial courts will offer legal services 24 hours a day. They also plan to work with universities and financial entities to build internship bases for law students to deepen their knowledge of finance and their ability to handle disputes.