国内英语新闻:Highlights of China's judicial reform progress in 2018

BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Over the last year, China has made progress in reforming its judicial and law enforcement system, as part of efforts to make it fairer, as well as more efficient and authoritative.

The following are some highlights:

-- On Aug. 20, 2018, China launched the Shanghai Financial Court, the country's first court specializing in handling finance-related cases. In its first month, the court accepted cases dealing with over 10 billion yuan (1.4 billion U.S. dollars).

-- China's top court and top procuratorate have advanced trial-centered reform of criminal procedures.

-- The Ministry of Public Security has built a system to put the entire process of police law enforcement on record.

-- The Ministry of Justice has worked to build a new type of prison system and explored improving a coordinated system of criminal penalty execution that links prison incarceration with community correction programs.

-- The judicial staff quota system reform has reshuffled the country's judges and prosecutors, enhancing the professional competence of the ranks and ensuring staff work in frontline practices. To date, China has 123,500 judges and 70,700 prosecutors within the quota system.

-- To bolster property-owner confidence, the judicial system has strengthened corrections in miscarriages of justice regarding property disputes, restrained from using unnecessary criminal punishment to handle cases involving private enterprises and streamlined procedures in law enforcement.

-- The centralized, unified leadership of the Communist Party of China has been enhanced over the building of a government based on rule of law.

-- The top procuratorate, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, has undergone major restructuring, establishing 10 new departments to replace the previous set-ups, to improve its work, especially to ensure professional criminal prosecution.

-- Two new Internet courts opened in Beijing and Guangzhou.

-- Two international commercial courts were set up by the Supreme People's Court (SPC).

-- To promote transparency, over 2 million court trials have been live-streamed online on the SPC-run official website, attracting over 13 billion visits.