SHENZHEN would gradually introduce an exit mechanism this year to require court officials with spouses or children working as lawyers to leave their positions to avoid conflict of interest, chief of the Shenzhen Intermediate People s Court, Li Huanan, said in an annual court report to the MPC on Tuesday.
Alternatively, court officials could have their lawyer family members resign to remain in leading posts such as judges.
Li said city courts would require staff to report their immediate relatives employment situations this year, the Daily Sunshine reported yesterday.
Lawyers with spouses working as district court judges were already prevented from taking cases in district courts. Lawyers with spouses employed as judges in the intermediate court could not take cases in the intermediate court, said an unidentified official with the city s politics and law commission.
Shenzhen is not the first city to introduce such an exit mechanism, which is necessary to ensure judicial fairness, said Huang Yaying, dean of the law school at Shenzhen University.
Huang said the courts should release the information for public scrutiny.
A judge who has worked at a district court for almost 20 years said it was not rare for judges to have lawyer spouses in Shenzhen.
The unidentified judge said the exit mechanism would be well employed with the help of public scrutiny and strict enforcement.
However, Chen Xi, a lawyer, said the exit mechanism could not prevent judicial corruption.
It required more transparency with public scrutiny to arrest corruption, Huang said.
City courts heard more than 220,000 cases last year. A commercial court is being planned for the Qianhai area where a modern service industry is being established. (Li Hao)
