China Daily Global Edition (USA)

Top court seeks ways to force verdict compliance Cooperatio­n with banks expected to make access to money easier

- By CAO YIN caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn

China’s top court has pledged to work closer with banks and financial institutio­ns to allow judges to withdraw funds directly from the accounts of defendants who fail to comply with court-ordered payments.

“A quick deduction process would accelerate our procedures and force defaulters to abide by rulings, as well as further contribute to improving the social credit system,” Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People’s Court, said on Thursday.

Currently, judges can only find and freeze defaulters’ savings in a preliminar­y cooperatio­n arrangemen­t with banks. If they want to withdraw money to enforce a ruling, they have to apply to the bank, which is time-consuming, according to Mao Jinke, a judge from Haidian District People’s Court in Beijing.

He supported the plan to further cooperate with banks, saying that “the more accurate the informatio­n-sharing is between financial organs and us, the quicker we can lock defaulters’ assets and push them to carry out rulings — especially to urge debtors to pay back money”.

Until now, judges have only been allowed to search for and freeze 14 kinds of defaulters’ property, such as their savings accounts, private cars, securities and real estate. To that end, the top court connected the networks of more than 3,700 banks and more than 10 government department­s, the court said.

On March 18, land and resources authoritie­s were ordered to inform the top court whenever they transfer, mortgage or change the real estate of defaulters. That was followed a day later with an online system for sharing defaulters’ marital status and monthly family income. It was a project of the court and the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

“It can be seen that support for fighting defaulters is growing,” Zhou said, encouragin­g lower courts to find more innovative and effective techniques for urging people to comply with verdicts. activities, is also suggested.

And companies would be prohibited from adding more bikes in places where the total number has already hit its upper limit.

“It’s the right time to put shared bike management into legislatio­n,” said Zhu Wei, deputy director of the China University of Political Science and Law’s Communicat­ion Law Center. “Beijing set a good example for other places. The government should not pay the cost to develop shared bike companies.”

Mobike Technology Co, one of China’s biggest bike-sharing

The top court establishe­d a website in 2013 to ensure that defaulters obey court rulings by disclosing their informatio­n, including names and identity card numbers. As of Thursday, informatio­n on 9.96 million defaulters has been made publicly accessible.

In addition, people who do not comply with court rulings will also face restrictio­ns on their daily lives, in line with a guideline of the top court. For example, defaulters are barred from buying airline or some high-class rail tickets.

As of Thursday, the top court has stopped 10.15 million flight trips and 3.91 million rail trips, including highspeed railways, the statement said. It added that 2.22 million defaulters have complied with rulings because of the inconvenie­nce. companies, said it agrees with the proposed legislatio­n.

“It’s good to have the government keep an eye on the industry and guarantee quality in shared bikes,” said Cui Shufeng, director of Mobike’s government relations department.

Cui noted: “We have also used big data to cooperate with urban planning department­s in the design of convenient bike parking spaces.”

The company also expressed hope that the government would build a database of electronic plates for shared bikes to govern the total quantity of bikes in Beijing.

 ?? ZHAO RONG / FOR CHINA DAILY ?? Two pedestrian­s walk past shared bikes that are randomly piled by the side of a road in Beijing in January.
ZHAO RONG / FOR CHINA DAILY Two pedestrian­s walk past shared bikes that are randomly piled by the side of a road in Beijing in January.

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