Shanghai judicial bureau implements 63 new programs, providing greater service and transparency

This year, sign-language services for the hearing-impaired will be provided in all courts in the city. People can offer advice and participate in food inspections. The handling procedures of social insurance will also be further simplified.

These are some of the 63 legal programs that local departments will implement this year, which were revealed on Tuesday by the city's judicial bureau.

The three reform projects were recently selected by over 430,000 people from all programs, and listed among the top 10 city-level legal programs that people are looking forward to the most.

This is the fourth year of the poll, calling on improvements in the city's judicial system. This year's projects cover more fields, such as food and drug, natural resources and transportation, said Wu Jianyong, director of the Shanghai Judicial Bureau.

Huang Xiangqing, vice president of the Shanghai High People's Court, said that because of the increasing litigation needs of hearing-impaired people, sign-language service has been provided in six courts as pilot projects since 2020. This year, it will be extended to all courts in the city. Online reservations for sign-language services will also be available.

Li Xiaomeng, chief economic manager of the local market supervision bureau, said that although food safety has improved in recent years, it's still contrary to people's subjective experience, to some extent. So food inspection will become more transparent this year.

People can suggest market regulators increase the investigation of certain foods online and offline. Some people will be invited to take part in the inspections with law enforcement, and the results will be published, Li added.

Cheng Zhengdong, director of the local center of social insurance affairs, mentioned that online employment registration, social insurance application and other registrations will be put on the same interface for better service.

The 70 legal programs launched last year have shown results, Wu said.

For example, a platform for registering victims of illegal fund-raising cases has collected over 410,000 people's information and over 270,000 people recovered over 7.4 billion yuan (US$1.07 billion) last year.

Such kinds of cases often challenge the execution of court trials because they usually contain a large number of victims from different regions, with a large amount of money involved.

In a project against kidnapping and human trafficking launched by the local public security bureau last year, 16 abducted children returned home and seven criminal suspects were caught.

This month, a credit report can replace 'no criminal record' certificates issued by over 40 local departments in Shanghai to reduce the burden on enterprises. According to the statistics of the city's judicial bureau, as of Monday, 1,633 reports have been issued which has replaced over 28,000 certificates.