Text: Smoke Grammar.
Recently, the topic of whether the "Judgment Document Network", which has been implemented for ten years, should be replaced by the "Judgment Document Database" used within the courts, has also aroused heated discussions in the legal circle and even in all walks of life. The vast majority of people agree that only openness can promote justice, and only transparency can guarantee integrity. However, some views have also emerged that instead of allowing the legal documents of some judges with uneven abilities to be made public and let the credibility of the judiciary cause controversy, it is better to only select those high-quality judgment documents and judicial cases to be made public, which is conducive to maintaining the fair image of the judiciary.
Such a view has even been endorsed by some legal people, is it right?The "Decision of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform" adopted on November 12, 2013 stipulates that the openness of trials and procuratorial affairs shall be promoted, and the entire trial materials shall be recorded and retained. Strengthen the rationality of legal documents, and promote the disclosure of effective court judgment documents. On July 1 of the same year, the judgment document was launched online, and as of today, it has accumulated more than 108 billion hits, which is called a milestone in the judicial process of New China.
Subsequently, in the process of reforming the judicial responsibility system that began in 2014, the promotion of judicial openness was particularly eye-catching, and brilliant results were achieved. On October 29, 2014, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted the "Decision of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Advancing the Rule of Law", which pointed out that it is necessary to build an open, dynamic, transparent, and convenient sunshine judicial mechanism, promote the openness of trials, procuratorial affairs, police affairs, and prison affairs, and promptly disclose the judicial basis, procedures, processes, results, and effective legal documents for law enforcement in accordance with the law, and put an end to black-box operations. Strengthen the interpretation of legal documents and reasoning, and establish a unified online and public inquiry system for effective legal documents.
On November 5, 2016, Zhou Qiang, then President of the Supreme Court, made a special report on deepening judicial openness and promoting judicial fairness at the 24th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress. The report mentions that "efforts should be made to make judicial openness a conscious action of every court and every judge", supported by the informatization construction of the people's courtsEstablish four major platforms for the disclosure of trial processes, trial activities, judgment documents, and enforcement informationComprehensively deepen judicial openness, strive to build an open, dynamic, transparent, and convenient sunshine judicial mechanism, promote judicial fairness, and continuously enhance judicial credibility, achieving remarkable results.
Time has passed, everyone knows the truth of "openness to promote justice", and the first decision to promote judicial openness, judicial documents, and the content of speeches are still vivid, but what is the status quo of the four major platforms of trial process disclosure, trial activity disclosure, judgment document disclosure, and enforcement information disclosure?
A lawyer specifically wrote that a few years ago, when he was in a case, as long as it was not a confidential case, the judge would explain to all parties, in order to ensure judicial fairness and accept social supervision, this time it should be made public through the *** network, and everyone, including the judge, will be in the trial, behaving in a proper manner. But now, not only does not have the judge's initiative to explain, even if he applies several times, he will be directly rejected by the judge.
In addition to the reduction in the openness of the trial process, the openness of the judgment documents is also a cliff-like**. There is an argument that the previous guarantee of the strength of disclosure was because the number and proportion of judgment documents disclosed have always been an important evaluation indicator within the courts, but in recent years, they have not been used as the content of evaluations, and even recently, judgment documents have been based on the principle of non-online disclosure, and online disclosure is the exception.
What can be proved is that the screenshots of netizens show that the number of "new documents" published by courts across the country every day was tens of thousands, but now it is one or two thousand per day, and sometimes only a few hundred. According to lawyer statistics, after 2020, the online disclosure rate of judgment documents has dropped off a cliff, and the decline rates for administrative, criminal and civil cases in two years are respectively. 56%。This figure, in 2023, will reach an astonishing decline.
Screenshot of the Judgment Opinion Network on December 13, 2023.
Some legal scholars have written an article pointing out that previous case studies and legal opinions were based on the search results of online judgment documents, but the decline in the number of public judgment documents in the past two years has caused the search and analysis results to lose their reference value, and have even been regarded by some professional journals as a reason for insufficient reasoning.
It can be seen that with the decline of ***, the trial conflicts encountered by lawyers, along with the development of self-esteem, are repeatedly appearing in the form of jokes on the Internet, and occasionally attract the attention of *** and become news events. This year alone, the lawyer was reprimanded during the trial, "Is Fang Moumou your father?"”；The lawyer was scolded by the prosecutor who appeared in court, "I you!".The lawyer was in the process of defending his innocence, and was directly reprimanded by the other lawyers, "You are wasting everyone's time";The lawyer was still undergoing a security check, and the case was advanced to the end of the trial on the grounds that the lawyer "refused to appear in court without a legitimate reason".When a lawyer rests outside the courthouse gate during the adjournment, he is refused to appear in court again on the grounds that he will leave the courtroom even if he leaves the courtroom.
A number of lawyers have even suggested that many courts do not allow lawyers to bring mobile phones and laptops into the courtroom during court hearings. All of the above, if you still insist on ***, will it still happen?Many people think that openness is not conducive to judicial fairness, but if you look at these examples, will you still say such things?
Recently, another lawyer (former lawyer) came out on the Internet through a self-published "A Letter to the National Legal Person" saying that he, his team members, and the lawyer of the case were criminally filed by the local judicial authorities because of the case, and asked for attention. Many people have started to review cases based on their revelations alone.
To be honest, every time he sees such revelations and requests for help, Yan Yujun first looks at them with a skeptical attitude, even if the lawyer publishes a document, he also asks whether there are other public supporting materials to decide whether to accept it. However, without the guarantee of judicial openness, we will find that there are fewer and fewer materials and channels that can provide supporting evidence, and many people are wondering why judicial openness is not allowed if the judiciary is fair
Today, in the WeChat group, there are lawyers who believe that because of historical issues or the current situation, the level of many judges is indeed not good, so the court's selective publication of cases is indeed conducive to judicial fairness. Yan Yujun's reply to him was that if selective disclosure is conducive to judicial fairness, your ** case will allow the judge to selectively apply the law, are you willing to do it?
No matter what the reason is, only judicial openness and continuous increase in the intensity of openness can be the only way to continuously promote judicial fairness and further enhance judicial credibility. Building a society under the rule of law, practicing the judicial theme of "fairness and efficiency", and "striving to make the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case" are inseparable from judicial openness. The "openness, dynamics, transparency, and convenience for the people" of online judgment documents should not be mere formalities.