A New Prospect for Transparent Court Judgment in China?

Abstract

This article focuses on the understudied area of internet-facilitated judicial transparency and its implications for the right to know, the citizen’s engagement with China’s court system and the related development of competent legal reasoning. The analytical focus is on recent China Supreme People’s Court regulations bolstering open reporting on court websites. This article explores the scope and quality of this reform, comparing it with earlier ‘open trial’ initiatives and investigating its origins in its contemporary implications both in terms of generating public confidence in fair trial and in furthering the development of legal education inside and outside of the legal system. The internet may help to circulate an improved legal reasoning within the judiciary as well as support a more informed public understanding of the law’s requirements. Openness may pressure judges into a wider process of research and learning as they are more exposed to public scrutiny. At the same time it may well expose the extant level of legal incompetence in China’s new legal system.