Court cases reach record high in 2009

Financial crisis, social disputes blamed for 11 million lawsuits

Beijing - The economic downturn and rising social disputes pushed the number of court cases in China to a record 11.37 million last year, stretching the country's limited judicial resources.

The cases handled by local courts experienced a 6.3 percent increase year-on-year, while the Supreme People's Court (SPC) dealt with 13,318 cases, up 26.2 percent, the country's top judge Wang Shengjun said on Thursday in his annual report to the National People's Congress (NPC).