Lawmakers, political advisers champion greater transparency

A number of national lawmakers and political advisers have suggested the country promote judicial openness in the form of laws, as transparency is key to ensuring public confidence in the justice system.

Highlighting the importance of verdict disclosure, Tian Xuan, a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress, China's top legislature, said that judicial openness is an effective way to strengthen people's belief in justice and to understand the work of legal authorities.

He emphasized that it is a must to advance judicial transparency, and called for regulations that specify the disclosure of court rulings.

At the same time, "it's also necessary to classify the disclosed verdicts to ensure more people can participate in judicial openness," he added.

Hu Jianmiao, a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the nation's top political advisory body, backed the building up of the newly established archive of legal cases. He also called for optimizing China Judgements Online, a website set up in 2013 by the country's top court for disclosing verdicts.

"With their own characteristics, the two platforms can complement each other," he said. Hu, who is also a professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (National Academy of Governance), said the administrative cases disclosed online are a treasure trove for research of administrative laws.

Nie Xin, also a member of the 14th CPPCC National Committee, has been following the measures taken to promote judicial transparency. "It's a crucial part of governing the country by rule of law, as well as a requirement put forward by the central leadership," Nie said.

Disclosing judicial affairs — including verdicts, trials and enforcement of rulings — is to ensure justice is done, and it also encourages judges to improve the quality of case-handling by being subject to public scrutiny, he said.

Even though the China Judgements Online website's operations had faced some challenges that triggered public concerns on improper disclosure, the progress in judicial openness cannot be stopped, Nie said.

"Judicial transparency is not only a strong guarantee for the people to participate in judicial activities and implement whole-process people's democracy, but it is also a good way to prevent corruption in the judicial system," he said.

The nation should ensure judicial openness through legislation, he said, adding, "It's essential to protect judicial data security by upgrading technology, rather than not making it public."

While supporting efforts to strengthen and deepen judicial transparency, Si Fuchun, an NPC deputy, also called for the courts to streamline case-handling, reduce the cost of litigation and provide high-quality legal services, to improve judicial efficiency and meet the public's demand.