BEIJING, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- A draft amendment to the Civil Procedure Law will allow a third party to bring legal action if civil rights and interests are infringed upon by malicious litigation.
The draft is undergoing a third reading by the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, China's top legislature, at a bimonthly session that began Monday.
The draft includes a new clause allowing third parties to appeal court decisions if they have evidence that the court's verdict, ruling or mediation has violated their rights and interests.
As more and more Chinese people become aware that civil action can protect their legal rights and interests in economic disputes, malicious lawsuits have increasingly taken up judicial resources and obstructed justice.
The draft also revises the amount of money people can seek in small claims courts to 30 percent of the average yearly wage in the province, autonomous region or municipality in which the case is heard.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the average yearly wage of urban Chinese in 2011 was 41,799 yuan, which means the amount will be around 12,000 yuan (1,887 U.S. dollars) in most provinces, regions and municipalities.
More than 20 years after the enactment of the Civil Procedure Law, the draft amendment was submitted to the top legislature in October last year for the first reading and later received more than 8,000 suggestions and proposals from the public.
When submitted for a second reading in April, the draft had raised the monetary cap for small claims courts from 5,000 to 10,000 yuan.
Legislators and experts argued that setting a flexible standard could better satisfy the reality that economic development levels vary greatly among regions, according to Li Shishi, vice chairman of the NPC's Law Committee, who briefed national lawmakers on Monday.
Raising the monetary cap will allow small claims for debts or damages to be handled more efficiently.
China's top legislature is striving to achieve a balance between justice and efficiency as civil claims meet with a court system unequipped to deal with a surging amount of cases, resulting in such cases lingering unresolved.
The draft also proposes that courts at the county level, or grassroots courts, can make a final judgement in the first instance trial over a civil claim for up to a certain amount of money.