On January 14, the Supreme People's Court held a national conference of presidents of high courts. The meeting mentioned that the Supreme Court requires that judgment documents be strengthened online, and documents that have the role of rule of law guidance, education, and warning should be online; The documents of the Supreme Court and the High Court should be more available online.
When interpreting the "Supreme People's Court's Efforts to Increase the Internet Access to Judgment Documents", Huang Wenxu, associate professor of the Law School of Hunan Normal University and head of the MOOC "Big Data and Legal Retrieval" course of China University, said that the direction of the disclosure of judgment documents of Chinese courts will never change, but will only deepen, and he hopes that the Internet of judgment documents will continue to adhere to the basic spirit of "taking the Internet as the principle and not going online as the exception". The comprehensive online use of judgment documents has become an important achievement and a bright business card for China's rule of law constructionThis has made our country one of the best countries in the world in terms of judicial openness.
Judgment documents are records of the trial process and results of the people's courts, they are the carrier of the results of litigation activities, and they are also the only evidence for the people's courts to determine and distribute the substantive rights and obligations of the parties. Judgment documents are an important part of litigation files. The litigation archives record the entire trial process of the court's criminal, civil, administrative and other cases, and truly reproduce the purpose and intensity of the court's punishment of violations and crimes, the resolution of civil disputes, the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of the parties, and the maintenance of the socialist legal system and social order. After the case is concluded, the clerk of the business department will hand over the paper file to the archives. The paper file contains the identity information of the parties, the trial transcript, the evidence materials provided by the original defendant, the judgment documents, and other materials.
Previously,Access to China's litigation archives has always been conditionally open to the public. The parties to the case, the parties' families, ** lawyers, and relevant units may use valid materials (such as ID cards and letters of introduction) to review the case file within the scope of strict use prescribed by the court.
The judgment documents mentioned by the Supreme People's Court are available online, and the litigation files are open to the wider public. In July 2023, the Supreme People's Court established a "People's Court Case Database" after research. The construction of the "People's Court Case Database" allows the public to openly consult and retrieve case information, which can provide better and more practical services for high-quality and efficient judicial trials, and serve the public to study law, experts and scholars to conduct scientific research, and lawyers to handle cases. However, it is a major move to make the litigation files public.
However, there are also a large number of hidden dangers in the disclosure of these archives of judgment documents, such as invasion of the privacy of the parties to the case, and may even have some negative effects. Therefore, experts in this field suggest that the Supreme Court promptly revise the Provisions of the People's Courts on the Publication of Judgment Documents by the People's Courts on the Internet in accordance with the Civil Code and the Personal Information Protection, appropriately expand the exceptions to non-disclosure, and expand the types of cases that should be handled anonymously and the scope of information that should be deletedBalance the relationship between the disclosure of judgment documents and the protection of the parties' privacy.
This time, the Supreme People's Court stated that "all documents that have the role of rule of law guidance, education, and warning should be online", but some professionals believe that this standard of disclosure is too general and cannot clearly determine which judgment documents are suitable for disclosure, and suggest that the Supreme People's Court should explain the disclosure standard in more detail. Like the adjudication documents, the disclosure standards of many archives in China are not transparent and specific, which leads to the fact that many archives cannot be developed and utilized on a larger scale.
However, this time, "judgment documents are on the Internet to a greater extent" has become a beautiful scenery for the open use of China's litigation archivesIt is believed that with the development of the technology of open use of archives and the reform and innovation of relevant departments, archives in various fields can be rediscovered from the archives and give full play to their value.
Editor: Digital Archives Management***