China's supreme court launches case-tracking website

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) of China on Thursday officially launched a website for parties to track the progress of their court cases in an effort to boost judicial transparency.

Using their ID numbers, involved parties and lawyers can check the status of a case handled by the SPC or local courts in 20 provincial-level regions, including Beijing, as well as electronic documents and in-court video recordings at www.court.gov.cn/zgsplcxxgkw, according to an SPC statement.

The general public has access to basic information on courts and their court officials, as well as manuals on litigation and judicial procedures.

"All case information fit for the public is available at the site, while some is unfit for online disclosure due to its special nature and may only be obtained via strict official procedures," the statement said, citing information related to review of death penalty cases as an example.

Zhou Qiang, president of the SPC, said the official opening of case-tracking website marks another leap-forward of China's judicial openness and publicity.

Zhou urged the mechanism to focus on improving judicial transparency and the people's convenience. The website should further enrich the content of trial process of the court cases, he said.

Zhou said judicial credibility will not be achieved by truth concealing or self-boasting. Instead, the public trust on administration of justice must be promoted by impartial and efficient trial and sentence of one and another specific cases.

He also called the judicial organs not to get around the problems but to actively resolve them.

The site started trial operation on Aug. 1 and has clocked more than 730,000 visits as of Oct. 31.

According to the statement, the SPC is working to have cases managed by all courts nationwide available on the site in the future.