Last July and August, I interned at the enforcement bureau of the court, and this time, for my graduation internship, I am returning to the same bureau.
I don’t know how I managed to get through that time; looking back now, it feels like a completely different world.
This graduation internship has been postponed repeatedly and finally started on November 9th, with the end date set for mid-January next year.
The Chancheng Court is a peculiar place. It seems to use the building that the former Foshan Intermediate Court vacated after relocating. As a result, the current setup is that the Chancheng Court has two buildings facing each other across a street, requiring frequent movement between them. The street in between is not a small alley but a main urban thoroughfare. During the day, the pedestrian crossing light lasts about 10 seconds, often flashing to turn red before one can even reach the motorway…
Among the courts in Foshan’s five districts, the Chancheng Court is arguably the most underdeveloped in terms of facilities. This situation is probably rare in other cities: the basic-level court in the district where the municipal government is located is actually more backward than the courts in other districts of the city.
Personally, I speculate that there are three main reasons for this:
Land in Chancheng is relatively scarce. Given its small area, it’s more profitable to sell a plot to developers than to allocate it for free to the court for building a new facility.
The number of cases in the Chancheng District Court is relatively low. The registered population is only 600,000, but the number of judges is not small. Compared to the neighboring Nanhai and Shunde courts, which handle millions of people, the number of judges is not much less.
It is said that the construction funds for the court are only partially covered by the finance bureau, and the rest must be earned by the court itself…
As can be seen from the map, among the five district courts in Foshan, the Chancheng District Court is indeed the least developed in terms of hardware.
I chose the work at the enforcement bureau myself, perhaps out of a momentary lapse of judgment, but since I’m here, I’ll make the best of it and try to do well.
Previously, at the Nanhai Court, I was just going through the motions, printing documents daily, recording cases online, and following the bailiffs around to post notices and inspect properties…
This time, it’s more hands-on, as I spend my days organizing case files with the clerk. Judging by the pace, the backlog of case files in the office can probably be cleared in a week or two, after which the days will likely be quite leisurely.