White paper: Judicial Transparency of Chinese Courts

III. Openness of Court Trial

Openness of court trial is the most direct way and means for people to understand judicial adjudication and obtain judicial recognition. With the wide application of internet and the development of information technology in recent years, the openness of court trial keeps making innovations on the method, expanding the target and enlarging the influence.

Establishment of China Court Trial Online

On December 11, 2013, China Court's Live Trial Website has been officially launched to provide citizens with live broadcasting and recording of court trial online. China Courts' Network launched the network live broadcasting column to make graphic live broadcasting of major cases tried by people's courts at all levels. People's courts at all levels have paid high attention to the trial disclosure of major cases and important cases, and made the Archangelos Gabriel shipwreck salvage retrial case, the administrative dispute serial case of Jordon's trademark dispute and other cases of great social concerns on live by Weibo, Internet live broadcasting and other means, and obtained good results. The people's courts at all levels have provided live broadcasting of trials of 439,000 cases on the Internet, attracting more than 1.7 billion viewers in total.

On September 27, 2016, the SPC officially launched China Court Trial Online on the basis of complete transformation, integration and upgrading of China Court's Live Trial Website. The platform realizes uniform gathering and authoritative punishing of court trial videos of people's courts at all levels in China, and there are 1,389 local courts that have realized the connection with China Court Trial Online. Through this platform, general public may select to watch the live case trial of China courts at real time, get to know about notice of live broadcasting of trial of hotly-debated cases, watch court trial videos on-demand, get access to information of court trial live broadcasting statistics, and bookmark and share the same through Weibo and WeChat, and this has truly realized the full coverage, real-time interconnection and in-depth disclosure of information on court trials and advanced the disclosure of the court trial into a new stage.

Promotion of the Legal Openness of SPC Court Trial

Since July 1, 2016, live broadcasting may be carried out through internet for the court trial of, in principles, any and all cases which shall be tried publicly by the SPC according to the laws. On April 26, 2016, the trial of the case of administrative dispute over Michael Jordan's trademark chaired by Judge Tao Kaiyuan, Vice President of the SPC, was broadcast live on www.chinacourt.org and the court channel of www.sina.com.cn. On July 1, 2016, the trial of a case of mining right dispute at the SPC's Second Circuit Court was broadcast live on the China Court Trial Online. On July 7, 2016, a shipwreck salvage dispute case presiding by HE Rong, vice president and associate justice of the SPC was broadcasted live on China Court's Live Trial Website. Within less than half a year since the launch of live broadcasting of trials, the SPC's court trial live broadcasting has received more than 96,000 views and 1.14 billion on-demand accesses.

Promotion of the Legal Openness of Trials by Courts at All Levels

People's courts at all levels have fully relied on the information means and internet platforms to strengthen the fusion of court trial disclosure and different media forms and extensively make use of television, network, Weibo, WeChat and other media to carry out court trial live broadcasting. Courts in Anhui have established WeChat IDs and generated QR Codes to proactively explore the way to access to court trial videos at any time by Weibo and WeChat. The public may watch the live broadcasting or videos of court trial at any time by cell phone and other mobile terminals or with the aid of the Sina Cloud Platform. The courts at all levels in Tianjin have established live courts, tape-recorded and videotaped the whole course of trials, and broadcast live 1,365 cases that were major and typical in nature, attracted wide attention of the society and were of legal education significance on the Internet in 2016. Since the launch of the "full-time" court trial network live broadcasting platform in September, 2014, courts in Guangzhou have basically realized the new normal of court trial live broadcasting characterized as "live broadcasting available every day in courts and available by every judge". The courts in Henan established more than 400 courts providing live video broadcasting, and have live-broadcasted the trials of more than 140,000 cases in total. Chongqing High People's Court has formulated and implemented the Court Trial Live Broadcasting Rules and other rules to strengthen the synchronous audio and video recordings of court trials and standardize the live broadcasting of court trials of cases. Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court has carried out "bi-network synchronous live broadcasting" by its official Weibo ID and official website, and the live broadcasting of the Case of JDB v. Wong Lo Kat over Unfair Competition tried by the Court has been viewed by more than 150,000 times. From January 7 to 8, 2016, Beijing Haidian People's Court has made live broadcasting of the whole trial of the case of "Qvodplay" suspected of seeking profits by spreading pornographic items, which lasted for more than 20 hours. And there are over one (1) million audience watching the videos during the live broadcasting on a cumulative basis, and over 40,000 persons watching the live broadcasting simultaneously to the maximum, as well as 27 long Weibo messages webcasting the whole court trial, the cumulative hits of which reached over 36 million. The Hefei Intermediate People's Court in Anhui and many other courts have introduced court trial live broadcasting into the electronic screen of the litigation service centers and city square LED screens, to directly show the court trial scenes to the general public.

Strengthening Court Trial Disclosure System and Technical Guarantee

On May 1, 2016, the newly amended Court Rules of the People's Republic of China has duly come into force and made explicit provision on the method and content of disclosure of information on courts, scope, subject and procedure of cases allowing attendance and observation of the court trial, and the circumstances under which live broadcasting of court trial is allowed and other content, which provides system assurance for the disclosure of court trial. All local courts keep improving their working mechanism and technical means for attendance and observation of court trial to secure the rights of the citizens to attend and observe the court trials. Courts in Anhui will proactively invite NPC members, CPPCC members and enforcement supervisors and other persons with certain social influence to attend and observe the court trial of cases of wide social concerns and relatively large social influence. Since 2013, the courts at three levels in Anhui Province have invited about 22,000 NPC members, CPPCC members and persons from all walks of life in total to attend and observe the court trial. Courts in Jiangsu have explored the court trial attendance and observation seats e-booking service, and Nanjing Intermediate People's Court has launched the Platform for Inviting People to Attend and Observe Court Trials through Network on its court website, which has provided convenience for the citizens to attend and observe court trials.

All local courts have made great efforts in promoting the construction of technological court and digital court, and laid solid technology and hardware foundation for the disclosure of court trials. By August of 2016, courts at all levels in China have built up over 20,000 technological courts, and realized the synchronous audio and video recording, e-storage, regular backup and long-term preservation of court trial activities for the whole court trial. Courts in Jiangxi have taken technological court to interconnect the scene of court trials with the signal of electronic display screen and touch screen at the litigation service hall to conduct real-time transmission and live broadcasting of the scene of court trial. Courts in Jiangsu have promoted the "three synchronous" practices, namely, synchronous audio and video recording, synchronous records and synchronous display of court trial records, and all 2,279 scientific trial courts in Jiangsu province have realized the "three synchronous" practices for court trial, and have basically realized "recording every trial" of the case that is tried at court.