China mulls over Civil Procedure Law improvement to increase litigation efficiency

BEIJING -- China expects to improve its Civil Procedure Law to boost the efficiency of litigations.

A draft amendment to the law was submitted for review at the latest session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, which commenced Tuesday.

The amendment seeks to improve the current small-amount litigation procedure by increasing its applicability and simplifying its process, while ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of the parties involved.

Also, it acknowledges the equal legal effectiveness of online and offline litigations and proposed making online service of litigation documents a more common practice.

The Supreme People's Court shall set up an authoritative platform to unify and regulate the online service of litigation documents through public announcement, it added.

The proposed measures included in the amendment are formulated after analyzing the results of pilot programs, which were carried out since 2019 in some parts of the country, said Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court, when expounding the amendment.