On March 8, 2021, Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court, delivered a work report of the Supreme People's Court at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress. In the report, nine typical cases of Henan Province are highlighted.
Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court. [Photo provided to dahe.cn]
In the report
A total of 34 typical cases related to the COVID-19 epidemic were released, and such criminal acts as deliberately concealing one's overseas travel history (many people were quarantined as a result), committing fraud on medical workers dispatched to Wuhan and other parts of Hubei, cheating on public donations under the cloak of charities, driving up prices, starting or spreading rumors, etc.
Henan practice
In March 2020, the accused Guo (pseudonym) arrived in Beijing by train from Zhengzhou, and then travelled to Milan, Italy and Paris, France via Abu Dhabi of United Arab Emirates by air. Guo deliberately concealed his travels, didn't follow the quarantine requirements after returning to China, and was finally diagnosed with COVID-19. As a result, 43 people in close contact with him were collectively quarantined for medical observation and the entire building where he was working had to be closed for days due to the high risk of spreading the virus.
On April 4, Guo was sentenced to one year and six months in prison by the Erqi District People's Court in Zhengzhou for obstructing the prevention and treatment of the infectious diseases.
In the report
To ensure public health emergency supplies, courts in Suzhou, Weihai and Xinxiang granted emergency permission to enterprises involved in bankruptcies to resume production.
Henan practice
Henan Piao'an Group applied for bankruptcy and reorganization through the People's Court of Changyuan, Xinxiang, due to its broken capital chain.
After the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, under the guidance of the Intermediate People's Court of Xinxiang, the People's Court of Changyuan timely coordinated with relevant departments to solve the problem of raw material procurement of Piao'an Group. At the same time, with the joint efforts of the local government and the court, such problems related to production as equipment and labor were finally solved.
From January 18 to March 5, 2020, a total of 315 thousand protective clothing and 26.5 million medical masks were produced by Piao'an Group and sent to the virus-hit places, making significant contribution to the nation's epidemic prevention and control and winning a commendation from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.
In the report
Court in Henan tried a case of waste acid polluting the Yellow River's tributaries and changed the phenomenon that "enterprises pollute, people suffer and government pays".
Henan practice
A company sent its waste acid produced during the production to some unqualified personnel for disposal. They poured the waste acid into the rivers of Huimugou and Jindi, causing serious pollution. The Puyang Municipal Government sued the company for damages to the ecological environment. The company was ordered by the Intermediate People's Court of Puyang in the first instance to compensate Puyang government for more than 4 million yuan, 50 percent of which should be paid immediately, while the rest can be deducted by participating in ecological environment management and technical innovation as well as buying compulsory environmental pollution liability insurance. The accused Wu and others were sentenced to the imprisonment of no less than two years and six months and no more than three years and eight months respectively for environment pollution.
In the report
Courts in the 9 provinces and autonomous regions through which the Yellow River flows such as Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shandong, Gansu and Ningxia strengthened their coordination in environmental resource adjudication to jointly protect the Yellow River, the nation's mother river.
Henan practice
The High People's Court of Henan actively explored a systematic, scientific and integrated judicial protection mechanism for the Yellow River Basin. Approved by the Supreme People's Court, Henan Superior People's Court designated the Railway Court of Zhengzhou to centralize jurisdiction over cases involving environmental resources in the Yellow River Basin within the province, so as to facilitate ecological protection and high-quality development of the Basin.
Since the implementation on September 1, 2020, with a cross-domain and online filing rate of 96.4 percent, 323 cases had been accepted while 313 concluded with an average processing time of 31.3 days. Besides, with the non-appeal ratein tried cases increasing by 5.2 percent, Henan's 4 cases were selected into the top ten typical cases of the juridical protection of the Basin's ecological environment.
In the report
Courts in Chongqing, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an and Lanzhou properly settled disputes over contract for international railway through transport. (Chinese source: dahe.cn Translator: Zhao Hanqing Intern: Huang Qianting Proofreader: Zhang Yuhong)
To be continued...
