China's chief justice Wang Shengjun, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), delivered a report on the work of the SPC Thursday afternoon to the Third Session of the 11th National People's Congress.

Following are the highlights of Wang's report extracted from the text distributed to the media before the opening of the fourth plenary meeting of the annual parliamentary session:

In 2009,

-- the SPC dealt with 13,318 cases of various types and concluded 11,749 cases, up 26.2 percent and 52.1 percent year on year, respectively. Local courts at various levels handled 11.37 million cases of various types, up by 6.3 percent.

-- Chinese courts concluded 767,000 criminal cases and sentenced 997,000 criminals, down by 0.2 percent and 1.1 percent respectively.

-- Chinese courts concluded 267,000 cases of severe crimes, including homicide, kidnapping, robbery, and those undermining national security, up 2.3 percent. A total of 375,000 criminals involved in these cases were sentenced, 0.8 percent more than the previous year.

-- Chinese courts concluded 527 cases of gang crimes and sentenced 3,231 criminals involved, an increase of 13.8 percent and 16.6 percent respectively.

-- Chinese courts sentenced 2,413 criminals for woman and child trafficking and 56,000 for drug trafficking.

-- Chinese courts concluded 11,000 cases of money laundering, and 55,000 cases of fund-raising fraud, credit card fraud, making and selling counterfeit banknotes and fake invoices.

-- Chinese courts concluded 25,912 cases of embezzlement, bribery and malfeasance, and sentenced 26,226 criminals involved.

-- Chinese courts concluded 1,703 cases of spreading pornographic electronic information, 47.5 percent higher than the previous year.

-- Chinese courts concluded 5.797 million civil cases, up by 7.7 percent over 2008.

-- Chinese courts concluded 3.154 million contract cases, up 8.6 percent; 519,000 financial cases, rising 12.9 percent; 3,573 cases of corporate bankruptcy, down 4.7 percent; 317,000 cases of labor disputes, up 10.8 percent; 36,000 intellectual property right infringement cases, up 29.7 percent.

-- Chinese courts concluded 11,000 civil cases concerning foreign parties, 16 percent higher than in 2008.

-- Chinese courts concluded 121,000 administrative cases, an increase of 10.5 percent; 1,531 cases claiming state compensation, down 6.3 percent year on year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2010)