The Supreme People's Court of China unveiled 23 reform measures aimed at improving the efficiency of the Chinese court system at a symposium held in Beijing from Sunday to Monday.

The Supreme People's Court will clear the backlog of cases by the end of September while subordinate courts will finish by the end of November. In the future, there will be no more detention in excess of the legally permitted period.

Excessive periods of detention, attributed to poor efficiency of courts and sometimes personal factors, has drawn harsh public criticism in China over recent years.

Courts across China hear more than six million cases every year but many were outside the prescribed time period set by the Supreme People's Court, according to statistics released at the symposium, attended by presidents of provincial higher people's courts.

At the symposium, the Supreme People's Court also urged the stepping up of mediation efforts, which it said was an effective and low-cost approach to address the piling up of lawsuits.

According to the symposium, 76.7 percent of cases received mediation in 1989 while the ratio dropped to 30.78 percent in 2001.

The package of reform measures also included answering complaints in the set time and soliciting public views on major interpretations of the law.

(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2003)