| By Chris Buckley BEIJING - China confronts a big gap between citizens' rising demands for legal protection and a court system struggling with inefficiency and poorly trained judges, the top judicial official said> In his annual report to parliament, Xiao Yang, the president of China's Supreme People's Court, listed achievements courts had made in past five years, but said serious problems remained. "We must also soberly understand that there remains quite a stark contradiction at present between people's constantly growing demands> Under the ruling Communist Party, there is no independence for the courts, prosecutors, police or judges, who answer to local party chiefs. But China's citizens are becoming increasingly vocal about their rights and in calls for accountability. Xiao said "the legal environment" needed to be improved continuously to give more independence to courts, which are funded and effectively controlled by local governments. "We should ... repel all kinds of disruption to ensure the people's courts can hear cases independently, fairly and according to law," said Xiao, who has been lauded by Chinese media as reform-minded in his 10 years as Supreme Court president. Xiao said that in 2008, the focus of the courts would be> Over the past five years, Chinese courts have dealt with 1.2 million cases of violent crime, including murder, kidnap and robbery, which Xiao said was a rise of 10.1 percent over the previous five-year period. | 
发表于 2008-3-10 14:35
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