The more open the judiciary is, the more authoritative and credible it will be.
Original title: The more open the judiciary is, the more authoritative and credible it is.
Justice should not only be realized, but also be realized in a way that people can see. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out that "the more open law enforcement and justice are, the more authoritative and credible they will be". Judicial openness is an important part of the rule of law, bearing the value of fairness and justice and the goal of judicial public trust. Constructing an open, dynamic, transparent and convenient sunshine judicial mechanism is not only an important content of deepening the comprehensive reform of the judicial system in the new era, but also an important measure to implement the requirement of "strengthening the restriction and supervision of judicial activities" in the Party’s Report to the 20th CPC National Congress.
What is judicial openness? What does it include? Where is the limit of publicity? There is a view that judicial openness is equal to trial openness. This understanding has some reasonable elements, but it is not comprehensive. The openness of trial is not only an important litigation principle recognized by all countries in the world, but also an important guarantee for realizing judicial justice and social justice. However, in China, judicial openness refers not only to the openness of trials, but to the all-round openness of judicial activities. According to the Opinions on Further Deepening Judicial Openness issued by the Supreme People’s Court, information about the basic situation of people’s courts, trial execution, litigation services, judicial reform, judicial administrative affairs, international judicial exchanges and cooperation, team building, etc., should be voluntarily disclosed in an appropriate form, except for those that are not disclosed in accordance with laws and regulations and judicial interpretations. That is to say, under the guidance of the concept of "openness is the principle, but non-openness is the exception", no matter filing a case, hearing, trial, judgment or enforcement, every link of the judiciary should be able to inquire through open channels; Whether formulating judicial policies, issuing judicial interpretations or promoting trial management, the people’s courts should emphasize openness and transparency in every work.
In recent years, in order to meet the people’s expectations of judicial justice, China has continuously introduced and improved the top-level design related to judicial openness, emphasizing not only the system construction of specific links, but also the overall reform and coordination of the judicial openness system. People’s courts at all levels actively explore innovative forms of judicial openness, with constantly enriched contents, innovative methods and improved mechanisms, constantly expanding its scope, breadth and depth, and significantly improving the level of standardization, institutionalization and informatization. With the deepening of the reform of the judicial system and the continuous improvement of the public’s awareness of the rule of law, China’s judicial openness should constantly adapt to the new situation and make new breakthroughs.
Refine the supporting system and open standards. The Opinions on Further Deepening Judicial Disclosure has systematically stipulated the matters that should be made public. On this basis, it is necessary to further clarify and refine the disclosure standards of all kinds of information. For example, it should be further clarified to what extent the information of court leaders, judges, administrative personnel and other judicial personnel needs to be made public. We can refer to the management mode of government affairs disclosure list, compile a list of judicial disclosure, and make clear the elements, methods, subjects and time limits of disclosure. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify the institutions and functions, methods, procedures and related relief mechanisms of judicial information disclosure.
Pay attention to the openness of interpretation and reasoning. When making a judgment, the judge should explain in detail the internal logical relationship between the analysis of evidence, the determination of facts, the meaning of citing legal provisions, and the judgment results. Judgment documents are the most important "judicial products", and the disclosure of judgment documents is the main content of judicial disclosure. However, due to the requirements of the professional standards for the production of judgment documents, it is sometimes difficult for the parties and the public to accurately understand and grasp the reasoning process of judges and the reasons for the formation of judgments. Especially for cases with high social concern, we should not only disclose the basis of fact finding, the process of reasoning and interpretation of applicable laws and the reasons for judging, but also respond to whether the litigants’ litigation reasons and defense claims are established, so that the litigants and the public can not only know what the result is, but also know why, so as to truly distinguish between laws and arguments, win and lose, so that the people can better feel fairness and justice in judicial cases, and it is also conducive to enhancing the authority and credibility of the judiciary.
Strengthen the normalization mechanism of judicial openness. The latest, most accurate and authoritative information should be displayed to the society through judicial disclosure. However, at present, some courts are not effective in judicial disclosure, and there are still some problems such as untimely information disclosure, selective information disclosure, no feedback in information disclosure and imperfect evaluation and supervision of judicial information disclosure. In this regard, we should explore the establishment and improvement of the normalization mechanism of judicial disclosure, and the information that can be disclosed should be pushed to the Internet in real time to show to the public and the parties to the case, so as to effectively meet the information needs of the public and the parties. At the same time, judicial disclosure is not written on paper, nor is it a mere preaching, but an interactive process based on judicial information. It should not only be satisfied with the publication of all kinds of information, but also transform the existing one-way information publishing platform into a comprehensive platform with interactive, service and supervision functions, clarify the feedback mechanism of judicial information disclosure, establish an assessment system and accountability system that conforms to the law of judicial information disclosure, respond to judicial events and related judicial information concerned by the masses in time, and truly build a bridge to communicate with the public.
Optimize and upgrade the carrier of judicial open platform. The judicial openness in the information age must rely on the Internet. With the development and popularization of modern information technology, it plays an increasingly important role in ensuring the substantive disclosure of trial information. In recent years, courts at all levels have continuously strengthened information construction, expanded the ways and means of trial information disclosure, and actively promoted the construction of four platforms: trial process, trial activities, judgment documents and execution information disclosure. We should continue to strengthen and standardize the website column setting and various functional configurations. We can refer to "Guidelines for the Development of Government Websites" issued by the State Council, and the Supreme People’s Court will issue national norms or guidelines for the construction of court websites, specifying the names and configuration requirements of basic columns of websites, strengthening the configuration of intelligent retrieval functions, and configuring multilingual and barrier-free functions. For example, in the disclosure of execution information, all court websites should set up execution information columns, which should include case inquiry, execution punishment, execution exposure, judicial auction, execution report and so on.
Pay attention to balancing judicial openness and personal information protection. Judicial openness is not absolute, and citizens’ individual rights should be fully respected. Judicial data may also produce various security risks in the process of disclosure, the most typical of which is the violation of personal information rights. For example, some public judgment documents do not deal with sensitive personal information such as the mobile phone number, home address, license plate number and health status of the parties to be deleted, and some public trial videos do not deal with fragments containing personal information, which may have adverse effects on the private life of the relevant subjects when exposed on the Internet. Therefore, it is necessary to take effective measures to strengthen the protection of personal information in judicial disclosure. The Data Security Law establishes a data classification and classification protection system. The judicial organs should classify and classify the relevant contents according to the specific types of cases, distinguish and classify different data according to the attribute differences of personal information data, and strengthen the protection of personal information by means of data desensitization and privacy evaluation. (Wang Yu)
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