South China's Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court are inviting deputies to the local people's congress and the political consultative conference to watch court cases under a new scheme to make judicial activities more transparent, according to Monday's China Daily.

The programme involves at least 1,000 deputies hearing about 100 typical trial cases, according to their interests.

"The cases are mainly to do with labour disputes and civil cases," Yu Mingyong, vice-president of the Guangzhou court, told China Daily.

The scheme is designed to promote justice, and means lawmakers hear cases with considerable social repercussions, according to Yu.

Deputies to hear cases can be nominated by the court and also by work units or residential communities.

The first group of deputies, from the Guangzhou People's Congress and the Guangzhou Political Consultative Conference, visited court to hear a labour dispute case on Friday.

After the 90-minute hearing, they had to give feedback on trial procedures and the ability of the judge.

"The hearing gave us a more complete knowledge of judicial and ruling procedures at court," Huang Weiping, a member of the Guangzhou People's Congress, was quoted as saying.

The deputy who are concerned about working rights plans to come up with a proposal for the court on how to better protect employees' rights when labour disputes occur.

Liu Xuemei, a teacher from the Guangzhou No. 23 Middle School, welcomed the new scheme, saying that the general public needs feedback from deputies of the Congress as most people do not know the whole court process.

Source: Xinhua