China's supreme court issues judicial interpretation to ease document delivery hurdle across Strait

BEIJING, April 22 (Xinhua) -- The Supreme People's Court (SPC) of China on Tuesday issued a judicial interpretation aiming to solve the problem of sending litigation documents between the mainland and Taiwan.

The regulations on delivering civil bills of indictment regarding Taiwan residents, released on Tuesday, would take effect the next day.

Huang Songyou, SPC vice president, told a press conference that mainland courts handled an increasing number of cases relating to people living in Taiwan in recent years. Statistics show, the courts dealt with 4,163 such cases in 2007, up 18 percent over 2006.

The difficulty in delivering litigation documents has became a bottleneck faced by courts on both sides. It's estimated that almost 80 percent of civil suits handled by mainland courts concerning Taiwanese could not reach relevant parties on the island.

Likewise, there were thousands of litigation documents piled in Taiwan courts waiting to be sent to mainland parties.

Huang said "it's urgent and necessary to solve the problem so as to safeguard the interest of parties concerned across the Strait."

The regulations, comprising 12 stipulations, include application sphere, document category, delivery methods, time limits and specific requirements.

Mainland legal representations or organizations that could represent recipients, could receive documents for relevant parties in Taiwan, according to the regulations, which detailed various delivery channels such as e-mail, fax, direct delivery or issuing public announcements.

"The promulgation of the regulations, a major judicial measure renewing previous ones in 1988 and 1998, will greatly ease hurdles in document delivery, boost legal awareness and confidence of residents on both sides and promote cross-Strait judicial exchanges," Huang said.