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Keith Zhai

The country's chief judge pledged yesterday to increase transparency in the judicial process as 3,000 provincial and lower level courts began to post judgments online.
Supreme People's Court President Zhou Qiang announced the move yesterday as part of an experiment to improve the judicial system announced by the Communist Party after the third plenum, including efforts to reduce political intervention in local courts.
"Judicial openness is the crux to ensure that independent judgments can be made by relying on the law, and to bring accountability to the judicial system," Zhou said in a meeting with the country's top judges in Shenzhen. "All the documents must be made public online except in circumstances stipulated by law."
Calling the national database "an unprecedented project", Zhou said the public should also be able to check the progress of their cases online.
CCTV: All trial proceedings to be open to the public

However, it remains unclear when that will be put in place as there is no timetable for the moves to be implemented. There was also no mention of whether local courts could be penalised for not following the orders.
The Supreme People's Court started posting judgments online in July, allowing the public to access most verdicts, including reviews of death sentences.
Last week, Meng Jianzhu , the secretary of the Central Politics and Law Commission, called for more public access to hearings.
Zhou also said that the courts should record proceedings and urged local courts to provide live updates online of some of their hearings. Some local-level judges said that the use of information technology to promote legal transparency would be difficult in less-developed areas.
Wang Chen , the top judge of Wuhan , Hubei province, said the project was expensive and local courts may need more funding.
Luo Dianlong , Guangxi's most senior judge, said some judges might fear being ridiculed if they erred in judgments made public.
"The launch of the new database will have a huge impact on judges with an outdated mindset, and they have to change with the times," Luo said.
Mainland media and observers lauded the relative transparency of trial proceedings of ousted politician Bo Xilai , which apparently became a testing ground for the top court's new measures. The court in Jinan , Shandong let the ousted politician present a defiant defence and updated most of the transcripts on Sina Weibo, a departure from the secretive trials of other senior officials.
But some members of the public were critical that published transcripts on microblogs were censored. Authorities kept journalists out of the court and allowed only carefully selected people to witness proceedings.
Both criminal and civil courtrooms are open to the public by law, but in practice the public are commonly barred from trials.
"The disclosure of judgments is a good move," said Liu Xiaoyuan , a Beijing based rights lawyer. "But, without remedies in case courts block publication of verdicts, the effect is limited."
 


Top judge vows transparency in court system

Zhou Qiang. Photo: SCMP 

News

China

Zhou Qiang orders thousands of courts across country to release judgments and withhold files from public only in exceptional circumstances
