V. Promoting Judicial Transparency

With the aims of further safeguarding judicial justice, satisfying the people’s information right, participation right and supervision right, and improving judicial transparency and judicial credibility, the SPC has taken the lead of, made overall plan of, deployed as an organic whole and simultaneously promoted the construction of three platforms of trial process disclosure, judgments and verdicts openness and enforcement information openness. The width and depth of judicial disclosure have been expanding relying upon the modern information technologies and the new media platforms.

To push forward the openness of trial process. In November, 2014, China’s Trial Process Information Disclosure website (http://www.court.gov.cn/zgsplcxxgkw/) has been officially launched. Currently, 32 provinces in China have basically established their trial process information disclosure platforms within their jurisdictions and provided links to the China’s Trial Process Information Disclosure website. The case parties and their litigation agents may lodge on to inquire and download the process information and materials relating to their cases by their valid ID numbers at any time since the acceptance of cases by courts. The procedural litigation documents of cases may be served through the website. Up to December 31, 2015, the total visits of the China’s Trial Process Information Disclosure website have reached 878,500; the trial process information of 10,883 newly accepted cases by the SPC has all been opened up for the parties concerned and their litigation agents; and more than 230,000 items of information have been opened up.

To push forward the openness of judgments and verdicts. In November, 2013, the SPC has launched the China Judgments & Verdicts website (http://www.court.gov.cn/zgcpwsw/), a nationwide platform for disclosure of judgments and verdicts and takes the lead to publish the judgments made by the SPC. The SPC requires that the publication of judgments and verdicts on the internet shall follow the principle of disclosure as a general rule and non-openness as an exception. Since January 1, 2014, the effective judgments and verdicts of the people’s courts at various levels have been successively published on the China Judgments & Verdicts website. This website has become the largest judgments website all over the world. Up to December 31, 2015, 3,499 courts in China have uploaded their judgments and verdicts to China Judgments & Verdicts website which add the number of published judgments and verdicts to 14,481,804 and the total visits have reached 410 million; among which, the SPC has published 11,379 judgments and verdicts. The law schools of many world class universities such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford have listed the judgments published on the China Judgments & Verdicts website as their research object. On December 15, 2015, the China Judgments & Verdicts website has completed the comprehensive revision and upgrade. The revised China Judgments & Verdicts website insists on demand-orientation and issue-orientation, provides various intelligent services, further improves the search function and promotes the publication of judgments and verdicts in minority languages, which better satisfies the diversified needs of the people and professional users on the judgments.

To push forward the openness of enforcement information. In November, 2014, the SPC has integrated four types of public information, namely information of persons subject to enforcement, the name list of dishonest persons subject to enforcement of courts across China, the enforcement case process information and the judgments of enforcement, into the China Enforcement Information Disclosure website (http://shixin.court.gov.cn/). Up to December 31, 2015, 34,347,288 items of information of persons subject to enforcement have been published by China Enforcement Information Disclosure website and responded to 36.85 million times of enforcement case information inquiries. Since December 2014, the SPC has launched the enforcement direction system and realized special connection to 21 national banking and financial institutions and as of December 31, 2015, provided 3,124 courts with online enforcement checking and controlling system. Most of high people’s courts have built up three-tiered connected “point to point” online checking and controlling systems for courts within their jurisdictions. The people’s courts have been enhancing the exposure of “deadbeats”. The information of those “deadbeats” who refuse to execute judgments or rulings has been published on the internet. They will be restricted from going abroad, conducting bid and tender and making high consumption. The SPC and Zhima Credit have executed the credit punishment memorandum on dishonest persons subject to enforcement and cooperated in carrying out credit punishment on them. As of December 31, 2015, Zhima Credit has restricted more than 130,000 dishonest persons subject to enforcement from purchasing air tickets, renting cars and making loans in total through its credit platform, which caused 5300 dishonest persons subject to enforcement pay off their debts, among which over 1500 persons are “deadbeats” eluding enforcement for more than three or four years.

To make innovation on judicial openness in forms and contents. Under the guidance of the SPC, the people’s courts at various levels have built comprehensive and all-dimensional information disclosure platforms by means of building court administrative affairs websites and setting up Weibo and WeChat official accounts, news reader applications, court president’s mailbox etc. On December 15, 2015, the English website of the SPC has formally launched. As of December 31, 2015, the number of fans following the SPC on the official Sina Weibo has exceeded 13.69 million. 3,636 courts across China have opened their own official Weibos. In December 2013, China Live Court Trial website (ts.chinacourt.org) has been officially launched. In February 2015, China court mobile television client has been rolled out and will circulate major news of the people’s courts, the trial situation of important cases and other judicial information to the public the first time. As of December 31, 2015, this China court mobile television client has published 2,862 pieces of videos with an updated content of 22,245 minutes, and accumulatively attracted more than 651,800 users. Since January 1, 2015 Chinese courts have been carrying out the monthly meeting for press release and convened nearly 6,000 press conferences. The SPC has convened 26 press conferences and 12 news conferences for classic cases and released 362 classic cases.