Top court reaffirms dedication to improving judicial transparency

China's determination and efforts to promote judicial openness will not be weakened, and its approach to ensuring transparency will become more diverse, the country's top court said.

The Supreme People's Court made the comment after public expressions of concern that China Judgements Online, the top court's website for disclosing rulings, could be closed following a decrease in the number of verdicts uploaded to it.

In response, the top court stressed on Friday that the website, established in 2013 in an attempt to improve judicial transparency, will continue to be used, but its operation will be optimized.

At the same time, it revealed that two other online platforms for court rulings are being set up, in part to offer more channels for the public to see verdicts and learn about the law.

It said the first new archive will mainly be used for analyzing judicial data through rulings, and so access will be restricted to court staff members.

But the second will be a library of all cases with reference value, no matter whether the material is provided by a court, a lawyer or a resident, and it will be accessible to everyone for research and learning about the law.

The top court said more than 2,000 cases from courts nationwide have been included in the library over the past three months, and it is still soliciting cases from more walks of life to meet the public's increasing demand for legal knowledge.

Addressing fears the website could be shut down after the case library is put into use, it said: "The two platforms will complement each other, meaning we won't replace the website with the library."

The concern over judicial openness triggered by the top court's website and the new archives has also attracted the attention of legal professionals, who pointed out that the pace of China's progress to judicial transparency cannot be stopped, whether it expands to new paths or optimizes the existing road.

Highlighting the significance of disclosing rulings, Che Hao, a law professor at Peking University, said such disclosure is not only conducive to regulating the making of judgments and enhancing public legal awareness, but also helps improve judicial credibility.

"Courts need to tell people that they have no special interests and are not biased to any side while dealing with disputes and making rulings, so it's essential to promote judicial transparency," he said.

He lauded the website's achievements over the years, but acknowledged that problems had been emerging.

"For example, inconsistent judgments in similar cases have been put online, and some information that shouldn't be made public has also been disclosed, which has affected judicial credibility and authority," he said.

Cheng Xiao, a law professor at Tsinghua University, underscored the importance of personal information protection in the disclosure of rulings, saying that some people found it difficult to find new jobs after the verdicts of labor disputes they were involved in were disclosed online.

In addition, inaccurate search services and uploaded data security risks were other major sources of public complaints and concerns, said Zhou Guangquan, another law professor from Tsinghua.

All the experts welcomed the top court's decision to optimize the website as timely and necessary.

Since July 2021, the top court has modified the website by improving ruling disclosure standards, resulting in the number of verdicts uploaded online dropping to 5.11 million this year from 19.2 million in 2020.

It said a regulation on disclosing rulings on the internet is expected to be revised, to give specific instructions to courts on when to upload verdicts and what personal data in the verdicts can be open to public viewing.

Cheng agreed with the prudent attitude to dealing with personal information, calling for the top court to strengthen data protection during the establishment of the new archives, especially the one that will be open to the public.

He suggested courts replace the names of litigants with the "plaintiff" and "defendant" when uploading rulings online, with stronger supervision of disclosed information, "so that personal data can be truly safeguarded on the way to guaranteeing judicial transparency".

Zhou said the quality of rulings uploaded on the website and the upcoming library should both be improved, as "more valuable verdicts, such as those involving complex or forward-looking cases, need to be made public, so as to better promote law theory research and enrich legal practice".

Expressing his confidence in the optimized website and the new platforms on court rulings, he said, "The nonstop judicial transparency, along with high-quality and more diverse legal services, will play a bigger role in helping the country improve judicial credibility."