Beijing court goes high-tech to help overseas litigants

A Beijing court has innovated measures to deal with domestic disputes involving overseas litigants over the past five years, in a bid to improve judicial efficiency and provide more convenience for people in litigation.

The Beijing Chaoyang District People's Court said in a report issued on Friday that it heard 727 domestic cases involving external affairs from 2018 to 2022, of which 717 were concluded.

A major part of the total focused on divorce and inheritance, and overseas litigants came from more than 60 countries and regions around the world, mainly from the United States, Canada, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Australia and Japan, the report said.

In addition, a rising number of litigants were also from countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, it added.

The court has applied advanced technologies and put legal procedures, including case filing, evidence exchanges, trials and delivery of documents, online, so as to give overseas litigants easier access to lawsuits, according to the report.

Furthermore, litigants who are not good at reading and speaking Chinese can also enjoy legal services in the court, because judges, along with volunteers from the China University of Political Science and Law, can provide bilingual explanations of litigation procedures, it said.

Thanks to the efforts made by the court in the past five years, more than 60 percent of the concluded cases were successfully solved through mediation, or ended after litigants withdrew the lawsuits, it added.

Chaoyang district is an important window of Beijing's external exchanges, as it is highly concentrated in international resources, with 90 percent of international media organizations and 80 percent of international organizations and international chambers of commerce.

It is also the home of 70 percent of multinational companies and 65 percent of foreign-funded financial institutions.

While highlighting the judicial achievements, the court pledged on Friday to uphold equal protection to litigants, no matter where they are from, vowing to further improve the quality of handling domestic cases involving external affairs.