Chinese lawmakers are deliberating a draft amendment to the Civil Procedure Law to help build an impartial, efficient and convenient litigation system for civil and commercial cases involving foreign elements.

The draft amendment was submitted on Tuesday to the ongoing 38th session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for the first reading.

According to Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court, as China further advances the high-level opening-up, the number of foreign-related civil and commercial cases heard by the Chinese courts has increased rapidly and covered more than 100 countries and regions around the world.

Facing more complicated law practices domestically and internationally, the current Civil Procedure Law passed by China's top legislature in 1991 with four times of revisions is hard to settle foreign-related civil and commercial disputes fairly, efficiently and conveniently, and at the same time, safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, so it's necessary to enhance the civil procedure law accordingly to improve China's appeal in global dispute settlement, Zhou said.

At Tuesday's meeting, Zhou told the Standing Committee that the draft amendment made 28 adjustments to the civil procedure law, involving 29 articles, of which 16 were added and 13 were modified. The revisions regarding the foreign-related stipulations include further enhancing the jurisdiction rules of Chinese courts over foreign civil and commercial cases, properly coordinating the conflict of jurisdiction, enriching the means of service of process involving foreign affairs, adding the provisions of extraterritorial investigation and evidence collection, and improving rules of recognizing and enforcing the verdicts made by foreign courts, Zhou said.

At the Central Conference on Comprehensively Advancing the Rule of Law in November 2020, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee proposed to advance the domestic and foreign-related rule of law in a coordinated manner, putting forward higher requirements for foreign-related legal work. Zhou stressed that enhancing foreign-related legal provisions in the civil procedure law will provide equal protection for foreign parties and create a market-oriented, law-based and international business environment, which is crucial to China's development interests.

Zhou introduced that to better improve the civil procedure law, the Supreme People's Court actively cooperated with the legislative organs, comprehensively summarized China's experience in trials of foreign civil and commercial disputes, and at the same time, learned from international treaties and foreign legislative experience. After in-depth investigation and research, wide opinion soliciting, and repeated revision and discussion, the Supreme People's Court formed their suggestions for the foreign-related legal revisions of the civil procedure law.

Other non-foreign related revisions in the civil procedure law mainly include expanding the scope of avoidance, clarifying the rules for judicial technicians to participate in litigation, improving the rules for identifying false litigation, adjusting the way of presenting appeals, and enhancing retrial application procedures and standards.