Senior Chinese leader Zhou Yongkang has encouraged judges and judicial workers to improve their work at grass-roots levels in a bid to ensure social justice and the people's legal rights.

Zhou, a Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks Wednesday while meeting with Chen Yanping, a model judge working at a district courtroom in east China's Jiangsu Province.

Chen has been working in the district courtroom in Jingjiang City for 14 years and properly dealt with more than 3,100 cases with neither misjudged cases nor complaint, which made her outstanding among some 200,000 judges across China.

She delivered a speech Wednesday in Beijing to report how she properly handled cases in order to ensure rights and interests of the people involved in cases.

Zhou described Chen as a people's judge who ensured their legal rights by sticking to laws and solving conflicts in a straightforward and acceptable way.

He urged some 200,000 judges across the country, especially those who work at grass-roots levels, to learn from Chen in order to better handle with social conflicts arising from rapid social transformation.