Recently, the General Office of the Supreme People's Court issued a document "Notice on the Construction of a National Court Judgment Database" circulating on the Internet. The online notice will be issued on November 21, 2023. According to the notice, the Supreme People's Court has made great efforts to build an intranet for the judgment document database, and plans to launch the national court judgment document database in January 2024, and clarified its application scope, only supporting court officers and police across the country to query and retrieve judgment documents on the internal private network.
The "China Judgments Network", which was once oriented to society and is regarded as the greatest progress in China's judiciary, has been replaced by a "Judgment Database" that is only accessible to court insiders. This will undoubtedly cover a layer of "frosted glass" for the disclosure and facilitation of access to judgment documents. This layer of "frosted glass" will inevitably open a wider back door for power to interfere with the judiciary. This is contrary to the sunshine justice we advocate.
Disclosure of judgment documents is an important part of judicial disclosure. The disclosure of court judgments to the public is also a general trend in judicial reform around the world. The mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong have long made public their judgment documents. Many countries around the world require courts to make their decisions public. This is because an open, transparent, and convenient judicial platform has the following benefits:
1. Promote judicial openness
The judgment document network publishes the judgment documents of courts at all levels, so that the public can understand the process and results of judicial trials, and enhances the transparency and credibility of the judiciary.
2. Facilitate public inquiries
The public can inquire about relevant judgment documents through the judgment opinion network, and learn about the specific circumstances of the case and the outcome of the handling, providing the public with a convenient and fast inquiry channel.
3. Promote the popularization of legal knowledge
The judgment documents published on the Judgment Opinions Network contain a wealth of legal knowledge and cases, which will help the public understand legal knowledge and improve legal awareness.
4. Promote judicial supervision
Public judgment documents are subject to social supervision, which is conducive to discovering and correcting problems in judicial adjudication and promoting judicial fairness.
The China Judgments Network is an important judicial platform, which provides the public with a channel to learn about judicial adjudication, strengthens public supervision, and promotes judicial openness and fairness.
Public documents, which could now be freely consulted by citizens, have now become available only "within the system". Except for cases involving personal privacy and state secrets, they all fall under the category of open trials. Since the trial is open, why can't the verdict be made public without a threshold for the public to inquire freely?
With regard to the much-criticized "different judgments in the same case", some judges are not constrained in their discretion. There has been a lot of discussion. Although we are not applying case law. But the judge's discretion should be limited by law. Otherwise, in the birth certificate of the baby trafficking reported by the same judge in @Shangguanjustice, the section chief was involved in more than 1,900 copies and was sentenced to 8 years, while the deputy section chief sold a total of 740 copies but was only sentenced to 4 years. If such discretionary power is not supervised and restricted, it leaves a back door for power to interfere with the judiciary and money to interfere with the judiciary.
Sunlight is the best preservative. However, when Sunshine is checked by the judgment document and sets up a sun shelter, or even frosted glass, it cannot accept the public's simple supervision. Who can guarantee that there are no germs of judicial corruption breeding in places covered with "frosted glass" and not having enough sunlight?
After some judgment documents were made public, they aroused a certain amount of discussion in public opinion. It has caused public opinion pressure on some local courts. This should be one of the main reasons for not making it public. The judiciary is meant to be subject to the supervision of the people. If the public is allowed to supervise the judiciary through frosted glass, how can sunshine justice be realized?
We have been promoting the rule of law. It can be described as a lot of resistance. With the disclosure of some cases, the use of power to suppress the law has been exposed in various places. The former director of the Liaoning Provincial Public Security Bureau, who was sentenced only a few days ago, served as the director of the Liaoning Provincial Public Security Department from March 2011 to March 2013. Sentenced to 17 years. It has involved the issue of concocting unjust, false and wrongly decided cases. In public cases, there is still such power to interfere with the administration of justice. If another layer of "frosted glass" is placed on the inquiry of judgment documents, it will certainly provide more convenience for more powers that are ready to intervene in the judiciary.
Disadvantages of disclosure of judgment documents
After the announcement of the decision of the General Office of the Supreme People's Court on the non-disclosure of judgment documents, there was also a discussion on the Internet about the disadvantages of disclosure. For example, it has increased the workload of basic level courts, the protection of personal information security, and the protection of judicial authority.
As for the workload, there has been a trend of decreasing the number of uploads uploaded by the courts over the years. In 2020, there were more than 23 million online documents, and now it is almost a year old, and in 2023, only more than 3 million judgment documents have been made public. Not only have the number of new cases decreased, but old judgments have also been withdrawn, and many judgments that have been seen on the website are no longer searchable when they are searched.
With regard to the protection of personal data, especially in criminal cases, these can be desensitized by technical means.
Although there are all kinds of drawbacks. But who is more important than these in terms of promoting the rule of law, sunshine justice, and protecting citizens' right to supervision?
The right to supervise the judiciary is conferred on citizens by the Constitution. This kind of obstacle to the convenient exercise of the right of supervision by citizens violates the provisions of the Constitution that the people have the right to supervise. It is hoped that in the case of no formal implementation, it can be corrected in time.
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