In a significant move towards enhanced judicial transparency, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) revealed that, between January and November 2024, Chinese courts published over 8.1 million judgments on the China Judgments Online website, a 67.3-percent increase year on year, according to the data released at a press conference held by the SPC on Dec 26.
Si Yanli, deputy head of the SPC's research office, said at the press conference that the SPC implemented multiple measures throughout 2024 to deepen judicial transparency, intensifying efforts to publish judgments online.
The surge in the number of publicly available judgments saw a wider range of areas and cases, effectively promoting a sense of fairness and justice that is more tangible and accessible, Si said.
She noted that the number of judgments newly disclosed by the SPC and provincial-level high people's courts is five times that of the same period in the previous year, and the number of judgments related to entity adjudications published online by courts nationwide has seen a significant increase, with a 99.8-percent year-on-year growth in the number of newly released judgments.
Si emphasized that courts around the country will focus on refining mechanisms for judicial information disclosure, including judgments, court proceedings and adjudication processes. Efforts will be made to develop guiding documents for judicial transparency, enhance the supervision, tracking, analysis and assessment mechanisms, release judicial data on a regular basis, and establish clear guidelines for public access and use of judicial data, she said.
She also stressed the importance of strengthening national data security, protecting the personal information of citizens and the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, and refining rules for anonymous publication of online judgments and rules for open court adjudications, so as to practice stricter oversight of improper use of judicial information.