Shandong Higher People's Court President Zhang Jiatian appears on the "Justices' Talks" program. [Photo/ court.gov.cn]

Shandong Higher People's Court President Zhang Jiatian, communicated with online users on "Justices' Talks", a program hosted by the information bureau of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) and chinacourt.org during the national two sessions on March 6.

"The people-centered approach is the 'fundamental standpoint' of political and legal work in the New Era," he said.

According to Zhang, Shandong courts have been constantly innovating measures for the benefit of the people by giving full play to the judicial function and putting the people-centered development idea into practice in all aspects of their work.

He mentioned the people-oriented approach repeatedly, saying that Shandong developed a smart platform for case filing, prepayment of litigation fees and online applications for refund of those fees, all docked with the social credit reporting system.

The system has been promoted across the province in an all-round way since June 1, 2018 and by the time of the interview more than 560,000 cases had been filed and the litigation fees of 270,000 cases paid online, he added.

2018 marks the decisive year of the goal of "substantially solving the difficulties in enforcement". Shandong courts played a leading role and spared no effort in performing their responsibilities and duties last year.

Statistics show that since 2016, Shandong courts have handled about 1.39 million cases involving enforcement, including 1.35 million cases that were closed. The sum of money collected through enforcement was 329.4 billion yuan ($49 billion), up 20.5 percent, 19.1 percent and 26 percent for each respective year.

The courts also rolled out a guideline on solving the difficulties in enforcement throughout the whole process, Zhang noted.

He said that in 2019, all courts in the province will adhere to the people-centered approach and focus on the goal of "making people feel the fairness and justice of every case".

He added that the courts will speed up construction of the judicial team and greatly contribute to celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.