Chief justice warns of weakness, pledges reform in court system(2)

PROGRESS IN JUDICIAL TRANSPARENCY

Chinese courts have made notable moves to improve judicial transparency last year.

According to Zhou's report, about 45,000 trial proceedings were published through media, including social media on the Internet, to engage the public.

The most prominent case was the trial of Bo Xilai, former secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a former member of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, in August last year. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power.

The Jinan City Intermediate People's Court, which heard the case, posted the trial transcript, pictures and video through its microblog account, which was welcomed by the public.

The SPC opened official accounts on Sina Weibo and WeChat, two of the country's leading social media tools.

The SPC opened a website to publish judgement papers. So far about 3,900 SPC judgements and 1.65 million ones from local courts have been published.

Judgement documents from more than 3,000 courts across China will be accessible through the online database within three years, Zhou said.

All judgement papers of the SPC and 14 provincial divisions in east and central China will be published on the website this year, he added.

In addition, courts will adopt open trials of commutation of sentences and parole cases as well as publish the verdicts that allow someone to serve a sentence outside jail for medical reasons.

Mu Ping, president of the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court, confirmed that from Jan. 1, all judgement papers of Beijing courts, except for those involving state secrets, personal and business privacy and the underage, have been published online and searchable.

"This year, our major move of transparency will be a mobile phone application," said Mu, also an NPC deputy attending the ongoing annual session.

Ordinary citizens can follow the updates of court information and notices, as well as get the instruction about how to file a case, if they download the application, according to Mu.

Litigants can follow the proceedings of their cases through the application, Mu added.

(Updated)