At present, online live broadcasting is very popular, but entertainment and even negative components are mostly. In the judicial field, online live broadcasting of court trials has gradually become popular, but judges, prosecutors, parties and lawyers are not trying to become "Internet celebrities", which involves a basic principle of litigation - public trials, which is a very serious topic.
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Online live broadcasting of court trials is a new thing, and it is natural to encounter new problems. A very critical question is:
Does the defendant have the right to apply for or request a live webcast of the trial?
The "struggle" over this issue in criminal trials is even more intense, with many defendants eager to broadcast live, but some courts are reluctant or afraid to do so.
What exactly is a live webcast of a trial, is it the power of the court, or is it the right of the accused?
China's civil, administrative, and criminal procedural laws all stipulate the principle of open trial: the vast majority of cases heard by the courts, except in a few cases involving state secrets, personal privacy, or other provisions of the law, should be conducted in public. Public trials correspond to secret trials, and their role in judicial fairness is self-evident.
Traditional public trials mainly refer to the trial activities of judges who can go to the courtroom to observe the trial activities of judges, and their limitations are obvious:
➢ Ordinary cases, citizens are limited by time and space, even if the court opens its doors, not many people have spare time to observe;
➢ In hot cases, courts are often unable to meet the needs of the general public due to the limited number of courtroom seats.
In the end, public trials tend to be a formality.
In particular, in some major and sensitive criminal cases, the court will often "restrict the flow" by issuing observation certificates on the grounds that the number of observer seats is limited, and some will even find some "extras" to squeeze out the observation seats, so that the judges can "control" the trial activities to avoid complications.
And the live broadcast of the trial may completely break this deadlock.
On the one hand, in front of the live camera, the behavior of judges, prosecutors, lawyers, parties and other parties will be better regulated;
On the other hand, free from the limitations of time and space, citizens can watch trials anytime and anywhere, and the participation and transparency of the judiciary will also be significantly improved.
Objectively speaking, for the courts and judges, the pressure brought about by the online live broadcast of court hearings is unprecedented. In the past, some flaws in the trial of judges, even if the defendant and the defender entangled, will often fail to solve; in the future, in the face of the online live broadcast of the trial, the judge's behavior, even if slightly out of line, can trigger an earthquake of online public opinion.
In recent years, the Supreme People's Court has been vigorously promoting online live broadcasting of court hearings, and has stipulated the content of online live broadcasts of court hearings in some judicial documents, which have become the judicial basis for online live broadcasting of court trials.
In 2010, the Supreme People's Court issued the Provisions on Live Recording and Broadcasting of Trial Activities of the People's Courts, which stipulates that courts may select public trials with high public concern, greater social impact, and legal publicity and education significance to conduct live trial broadcasts and recordings.
In 2015, the Supreme People's Court revised the Rules of the People's Courts, still reiterating that if the trial activities conducted in public in accordance with the law have one of the circumstances of high public concern, greater social impact, and strong significance of publicity and education on the rule of law, the court may conduct live broadcasting or recording of graphics, audio, video or other public media through television, the Internet or other public media.
According to the above provisions, the online live broadcast of the trial is not only a small case scope, but also the court has full decision-making power. In addition, the higher degree of public attention, the greater social impact, and the stronger significance of publicity and education on the rule of law are all more subjective standards, and the courts can completely make a choice when actually enforcing it. Conversely, the defendant and defender do not have the right to apply for any live webcast of the trial.
Happily, the awkward situation of online live broadcasting of trials will soon be broken. In 2016, the Supreme Court opened
The "China Trial Open Network" was launched, and it was the first to announce that all its cases in open court were broadcast live on the Internet on the website.
In 2018, the Jiangsu High Court also issued the Notice on Comprehensively Carrying Out Online Live Broadcasting of Court Hearings, requiring that "live broadcasting be the principle and no live broadcasting as an exception" to comprehensively promote live broadcasting of court hearings and achieve full coverage of all cases, all judges, and all courts.
In fact, the online live broadcast of court trials is not a "one-man show" of judges, and in the journey of governing the country according to law, our judges, procurators, lawyers, and even defendants who accept legal trials should be fully prepared for the online live broadcast of court trials and should play their respective legal roles.
There is no doubt that a new era of trial trials "with live broadcasting as the principle and no live broadcasting as an exception" has arrived. The online live broadcast of the trial is a new carrier of public trials, and it is also the best public trial, and for defendants and defenders, the law should give them this new procedural right in accordance with the law.
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