Criminal Law must not be misused to intervene in economic disputes

ON MONDAY, the Supreme People's Court instructed judicial departments to resolutely avoid treating economic disputes as crimes. Qianjiang Evening comments:

The supreme court released the instruction after Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, urged better protection of private business owners' property rights and legal interests, last week.

To put it bluntly, as required by the instruction, the judicial departments must prevent the crime of illegal business operations and the crime of contract swindling - two accusations based on the Criminal Law - being misused when dealing with economic disputes.