Delivering a report on the work of the Supreme People's Court to the first session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) Tuesday morning, the chief justice said the people's courts in the country have paid meticulous attention to establishing facts, evidence, procedures and applicable laws in handling different cases and declared not guilty 11,651 defendants in cases of private prosecution and 17,870 defendants in case of public prosecution.

The people's courts followed the principles of education, reform and redemption in handling juvenile cases, awarding probation as much as possible to under aged people who committed minor offenses that would no longer bring harms to the society so as to encourage them to repent and correct, Xiao said.

Meanwhile, Xiao said, Chinese courts have been very careful in handling administrative cases, seeing to it that the lawful rights and interests of litigants are protected and administrative agencies comply with laws in perform their duties.

Xiao said that the people's courts closed 464,689 administrative cases, 65 percent more than in the previous five years and handled 11,321 cases claiming for state compensation and judgments were given to 4,013 cases in favor of citizens, accounting for 35 percent, making wronged citizens get due judicial relief.

According to the chief justice, people's courts have tried every means to bring the judicial assistance system to perfection. They allowed a grace period in the payment of charges or waive the charges for litigants in difficulty, especially women, old people, underaged people, disabled people and laid-off workers claiming for alimony, endowments, social benefits and old age pension in litigation cases. For defendants of publicly prosecuted cases, the courts appointed lawyers for them to ensure the protection of their rights.

The courts provided judicial assistance to 590,000 cases over the past five years, involving 3.2 billion yuan, according to Xiao.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2003)