China’s top court sees 4m civil cases involving family disputes in two years
With multiple interests at stake, the lawsuits present special challenges for the bench, one Beijing judge says
China’s Supreme People’s Court said yesterday 4 million lawsuits involving families have been heard since 2013, state media has reported.
The provinces of Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu and Shandong saw the greatest number of cases, according to China News Service.
Zhu Chuntao, a judge at the Beijing Municipal Higher People’s Court, said lawsuits involving family matters were more complicated than other civil cases as judges needed to balance the interests of multiple parties, in addition to weighing ethical concerns, equality of the sexes and protection of special groups.
The capital accepted a total of 38,619 such cases, with about half being divorce cases.
A sampling of the data showed that about 9 per cent of divorce cases involved family violence.
The supreme court also disclosed 30 cases it said were typical of family conflicts that head into legal proceedings. In one, the court supported a divorced woman’s demand for compensation from her ex-husband for psychological distress caused by his philandering before their marriage.