Verdict scofflaws barred from travel

China has seen more defaulters barred from buying airline and rail tickets since the beginning of this year, as the restriction for those who do not comply with court rulings is being intensified.

From January to May, 2.29 million airplane trips and 747,000 rail trips of defaulters were blocked, respectively up 59 percent and 17 percent year-on-year, according to a Supreme People's Court news release on Thursday.

"We're effectively implementing the requirements of the central leadership to join hands with other authorities to compel defaulters to comply with verdicts by adding inconvenience to their daily lives," said Zhou Qiang, the top court's president.

So far, the top court has cooperated with more than 10 government departments, including the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Transport, as well as 3,840 banks nationwide to follow defaulters and their properties by sharing their information with each other, he said.

Thanks to that collaboration, 64 billion yuan ($985 million) in defaulters' bank accounts was frozen between January and May, the news release said. Meanwhile, 6.6 million cars, 12,000 houses and 2.1 billion yuan of defaulters' online accounts were uncovered at the same time, it added.

"All the numbers increased substantially compared with those in the same period of last year," Zhou said. "For example, the amount of money found in the defaulters' online accounts was almost six times as much as that in the first five months of 2017."

He said the restrictions on defaulters and the collaboration in searching for their properties have played a large role in enforcing compliance with verdicts. The top court disclosed on June 8 that 2.46 million individuals have complied with court orders from October 2013 to May this year.

"Our aim is to contribute to improving the social credit system, making litigants unable to escape their debts," he added.

In addition, Chinese courts have also increased the punishments of those who illegally shirk compliance with verdicts, said Liu Guixiang, a member of the top court's judicial committee.

Courts nationwide dealt with 7,509 such cases since 2016, he said, and some defaulters were given short-term detentions and some in serious situations were sentenced to prison terms.

In a case released by the Zhejiang Provincial High People's Court on Thursday, for example, a defaulter who was detained 11 times for noncompliance with a verdict was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the crime of ignoring court rulings.

"But we have still found that some courts never penalize a defaulter who illegally ignores a court verdict," Liu said, ordering them not to be hesitant in resolving such cases.