China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) has just issued a set of new regulations to improve effectiveness in enforcing court rulings.

The new regulations set a time limit of six months for executing court rulings involving property.

Applications to defer an execution must be submitted to the SPC five days ahead of the deadline.

Court officials should instruct the parties concerned to report and register their properties within three days of receiving a ruling, according to the regulations.

Courts should take prompt measures to prevent relevant parties transferring, hiding, selling or damaging their properties during the enforcement period.

Courts are asked to verify the exactitude of registered properties within five days.

For those who cannot provide evidence, courts should start an investigation 10 days after they submit their applications.

The income, bank deposits, securities, immovable properties, vehicles, machinery, intellectual property rights, and investment earnings of people affected by a court ruling should be investigated -- as well as their debt situation -- and the investigation should last no longer than one month.

The court is also obliged to host public hearings if the party that applies to enforce a ruling is not satisfied with the execution result.

All the legal documents and related materials, except those involving state or commercial secrets, produced during the enforcement period shall be made available to the parties concerned for reference and copying.

The new regulations will help enhance the effectiveness and transparency of the enforcement of court rulings, a knotty problem in China, said an SPC official.

They will also help strengthen supervision of enforcement work and ensure fairness, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)