BEIJING, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Supreme People's Court (SPC) in the past year made sound progress in the effort to tackle difficulties enforcing court rulings.

Chen Yifang, deputy director of the SPC general office, said Friday that the SPC handled 271 suggestions from 743 deputies of the National People's Congress (NPC) in 2018, with topics ranging from deepening judicial reforms, improving the enforcement of court judgments, to pushing forward breakthroughs in various areas.

Following a suggestion raised by deputies, an experimental mechanism developed by a county court in east China's Shandong Province on third-party supervision and evaluation in judgment enforcement has been expanded across the country, under guidance of the SPC.

The SPC also invited NPC deputies to attend symposiums during its judgment enforcement inspections in 31 provincial regions since June 2018.

The moves contributed to the efforts aimed at solving the difficulties enforcing court rulings, said Chen.

Between 2016 and 2018, courts across the country have handled 20.42 million judgment enforcement cases, with 19.39 million completed and 4.4 trillion yuan (about 650 billion U.S. dollars) repaid. And 3.51 million credit defaulters had fulfilled their obligations after receiving punishment by the end of 2018.

In response to other suggestions, the SPC made progress in introducing measures on the selection and appointment of people's jurors, establishing an appellate court for intellectual property right cases, and pushing forward the digitalization of court archives.

Efforts were also made to improve the transparency of handling suggestions from lawmakers and enhancing the follow-up tracking of the issues to keep the lawmakers informed.

Under Chinese law, the SPC is responsible to the NPC and its standing committee and is required to report its work to the NPC.