Beijing judges are calling for speedier delivery of legal documents involving foreign disputes, as well as the establishment of professional teams specializing in litigation involving foreigners, in a bid to handle an increasing number of such cases.

Liu Li, a judge of the Chaoyang District People's Court, said that she has no control over lengthy delivery times when handling foreign disputes.

"I dealt with a contract dispute involving a company in the United States. The plaintiff's lawyer was pregnant when the case was filed in court, but when she stood in the courtroom to help her client protect her rights, her child was almost 2 years old," said Liu, who succeeded in tackling the high-profile divorce case of Li Yang, founder of Crazy English, and his US wife.

Though document delivery was OK in this case, "for some others, such as a defendant from the British Virgin Islands, far from the Britain, I don't know when our materials will be sent."

The long wait has been attributed to complicated procedures, as documents must first be reviewed by a court's president and sent to an office for handling foreign affairs in the Beijing High People's Court.

"But that's not the end of it. The documents will continue to be delivered to the Supreme People's Court later," she said. "Every step in delivery takes time, while any delay in the procedures may influence when the trial opens."

Chen Zhengzheng, a judge from the Haidian District People's Court specializing in foreign cases, said that she has become accustomed to spending one or more years in delivering materials for foreign cases.

"The delay in hearing cases and the slow delivery of documents damages the interests of litigants and easily leads to the accumulation of foreign cases," Chen said. "Some addresses provided by foreigners are not clear, so we have to contact close relatives."

Meanwhile, verification of foreigners' identities is also difficult.

Thirteen overseas civil disputes were heard in Haidian in 2013. That number jumped to 169 in 2014, according to the court. "Cases involving overseas litigants increased quickly from 2013. The majority are divorces, accounting for 80 percent, followed by apartment rentals and house purchases," she said

(China Daily 03/11/2016 page5)