A court house for the Olympics

Like KTV, but with jail sentences!

The Olympic Village People’s Court is a Beijing court soecially set up to deal with Olympic legal issues.

The Olympic Village People’s Court moved out of its temporary location in Yayuncun and into snazzy new digs between the Athletes’ Village and the Badaling Expressway today.

The court is the seventh commissary court of the Chaoyang District People’s Court, and—as may be seen in the pictures at left and below—is totally sweet, with flat-panel TVs, touch-screen information systems, and a plaster wall covered with different versions of the character 法 (law) that reminded your correspondent of the ugliest tie he’s ever seen.

The Olympic Village People’s Court has heard 4,722 cases since first opening for business in late June of last year, of which it has resolved 4,380. (If this were baseball, the Olympic Village People’s Court would be batting 0.93.)

To date, only 20 of those cases have actually been Olympic-related, but 32 year-old presiding judge Qian Yixin is confident that with a 52 square kilometer jurisdiction that covers the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube, the Athletes’ Village, the Media Center, and many of the Chaoyang District’s foreigner-catering hotels, the court will have plenty more ahead of it.

The court—China’s first court to have ‘Olympic’ in the name, Xinhua informs us—will primarily hear civil cases pertaining to home rentals, labor disputes, property damage and personal injury, as well as disputes specifically caused by Olympic-related tourism, hotel accommodation, and the like.

Trials to feature color commentary, instant replay

The court has 11 courtrooms, including one handicapped-accessible courtroom and a courtroom for cases involving foreigners that can seat 27 observers and has a three-channel simultaneous interpreting system.

Xinhua’s website also shows flat-panel television screens flanking the judge’s bench in at least one courtroom—perhaps so that plaintiffs won’t have to miss the Games.

All signage is in Chinese and English, and all cases—excepting those involving state secrets—will be fully open in accordance with Chinese law, Qian says. The court will hear approximately 70% of Olympic-related cases during the Games.