China Judicial Transparency Index Report (2015)

Abstract

The evaluation results of China Judicial Transparency Index for 2015 show that judicial openness in China is rapidly improving as pushed by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC). Although some courts are latecomers to the development of judicial administration, they have enforced higher level of transparency in information disclosure. Some courts have made a breakthrough in information disclosure of the judgment documents that ought not to be published online. Some have been paying great attention to the disclosure of judicial statistics and have partially made publicly available the information about judicial reform. Nevertheless, several issues around judicial openness are also found, such that similar disclosure platforms are being developed redundantly, the accuracy of information disclosure is low, payment for the disclosure of judicial information is required, data disclosure is still at a preliminary stage, and the transparency in judicial reform requires further improvement. Judicial openness must be promoted by accommodating to big data application requirements and adopting the top-down design with a public-oriented mindset. The courts are required to construct intensive disclosure platforms, progressively develop work mechanisms for information disclosure upon application, abandon the idea of seeking profit from the disclosure of public information, introduce the relief mechanism for judicial openness and build a judicial big data.