Meng Jianzhu: Advance judicial reform, accelerate the building of a fair, efficient, and authoritative judicial system.
Meng Jianzhu, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, emphasized during an inspection in Jilin from the 16th to the 18th that it is essential to thoroughly implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of important speeches and the central government's decisions and deployments on deepening judicial system reform. He stressed adhering to a problem-oriented approach, daring to take responsibility, tackling difficulties, actively and steadily promoting substantive progress in judicial system reform, and accelerating the construction of a fair, efficient, and authoritative socialist judicial system.
Jilin is one of the pilot provinces for judicial system reform. Deepening judicial system reform was the focus of Meng Jianzhu's inspection. In Changchun, he visited grassroots political and legal units, chaired multiple meetings, and held discussions with heads of political and legal units, grassroots political and legal officers, legal experts, and lawyer representatives to gain an in-depth understanding of key and difficult issues in grassroots judicial work and to extensively listen to opinions and suggestions on judicial reform. Meng Jianzhu affirmed Jilin Province's careful preparations for planning judicial system reform pilot work in accordance with central deployments, pointing out that the reform pilot plan proposed by Jilin has the correct direction and clear thinking. He hoped that the plan would be further studied, demonstrated, refined, and improved to lay a solid foundation for carrying out the reform pilot work.
Meng Jianzhu pointed out that improving the classified management of judicial personnel, perfecting the judicial responsibility system, strengthening the professional protection of judicial personnel, and promoting unified management of personnel, finances, and assets of local courts and procuratorates below the provincial level are all fundamental and institutional measures for judicial system reform. Departments and localities participating in the reform pilot work should enhance their political responsibility and historical mission to advance these reforms from the strategic height of modernizing the national governance system and governance capacity. They must have the courage to face challenges and the wisdom to solve problems, focusing on addressing deep-seated issues affecting judicial fairness and constraining judicial capacity, breaking down institutional, mechanistic, and security obstacles, and accelerating the construction of a fair, efficient, and authoritative socialist judicial system.
Meng Jianzhu emphasized the need to combine top-level design with practical exploration, forging a reform path with Chinese characteristics that aligns with judicial principles. Pilot work must be conducted under central-level top-level design and policy guidance to ensure the direction, thinking, and goals of judicial system reform conform to the central authorities' spirit. Pilot localities should, based on the reform direction and policy orientation set by the central authorities, adapt to local realities, and follow the requirements of replicability and scalability, actively explore and summarize experiences to drive institutional innovation. Central political and legal units must earnestly fulfill their duties, conduct in-depth research and scientific deliberation, produce specific reform plans that are guiding and operational, guide localities in solving difficulties encountered during pilot work, and ensure reform deployments are implemented.
During a symposium with legal experts and lawyer representatives in Jilin Province, Meng Jianzhu pointed out that legal experts and lawyers are builders of a rule-of-law China and an important part of the national legal talent team. He hoped that legal experts and lawyers would continue to care about and focus on legal construction and judicial reform, offer more constructive suggestions, contribute wisdom and strength to judicial system reform, and jointly write a new chapter in building a rule-of-law China. He required that in deepening judicial system reform, attention should be paid to listening to opinions from all sides, including legal experts and lawyers, to pool wisdom and listen to all sides for clarity, providing intellectual support for smoothly advancing reform.
In recent years, the Chaoyang District People's Court in Changchun has introduced new measures for judicial convenience and benefit to the people, achieving good results. At the Chaoyang District Court's litigation service hall, Meng Jianzhu inspected service windows and asked duty officers about procedures and service content; in the pre-trial mediation room and juvenile court, he listened to introductions on resolving doctor-patient disputes, out-of-court conflict resolution, and fast-track trials for minor crimes. Meng Jianzhu emphasized that grassroots courts and officers are at the forefront of serving the people through justice and the first line of conflict resolution, dealing with the masses daily, and have special advantages and roles in facilitating litigation and serving the people. Officers must uphold the principle of serving the people, maintain a people-oriented sentiment, and embed convenient litigation measures in work processes and specific procedures, so the people can truly feel the fairness, convenience, and warmth of justice. The Chaoyang District Court also hires lawyers, university law faculty, and graduate students as volunteers to provide legal consultation services to the public in the litigation service hall. Meng Jianzhu had cordial conversations with volunteers, learning about their experiences in this role and suggestions for court work. He noted that the Chaoyang District Court actively uses its brain, skillfully utilizes and fully integrates social resources, forming a joint work force, and the experience created is worth learning from.
Meng Jianzhu also inspected efforts to deepen the construction of a safe China. During a survey at the Nanguan Branch of the Changchun Public Security Bureau, Meng Jianzhu praised the branch for improving its combined combat capability, achieving a significant drop in police incidents in its jurisdiction and a steady rise in public satisfaction. He also inspected police special equipment, warmly greeted special police officers, and encouraged them to maintain their loyal character, continuously improve legal literacy, hone combat skills, and make new contributions to fighting crime and serving the people. At the Jilin Provincial Public Security Department's command center, he listened to introductions from public security, criminal investigation, and border control units and watched demonstrations of public security informatization construction and application results, affirming Jilin's public security organs' achievements in strengthening police stations, professional teams, and informatization, and requiring public security organs and officers to solidly advance safe construction, better ensure people's peaceful lives, and maintain national long-term stability.
