China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) is taking a major step towards improving public understanding of the law and legal transparency with the launch of a new case library.
The case library, open for contributions from all walks of life, will include carefully curated cases deemed valuable for reference. Notably, the SPC emphasizes this resource will be accessible to everyone, not just legal professionals. This means ordinary citizens seeking to understand the law and navigate the legal system will have access to accurate and authorized information.
The library aims to achieve several key objectives:
- Boost public legal knowledge: Citizens will gain valuable insights into legal processes and outcomes, empowering them to make informed decisions.
- Support legal professionals: Lawyers and litigants will have access to a reliable and centralized repository of high-quality legal precedents.
- Promote consistency in verdicts: Standardizing case references across courts nationwide will help ensure similar cases receive similar rulings, reducing discrepancy and increasing fairness.
Addressing concerns about transparency, the SPC clarified that the existing online platform, China Judgements Online, will remain operational. While acknowledging ongoing challenges with search functionalities and inconsistent rulings, the court highlighted its efforts to improve data security and adhere to legal restrictions on information disclosure. The decline in uploaded verdicts this year reflects a stricter approach to upholding these standards, not a decrease in transparency.
Furthermore, the SPC reiterates its commitment to balancing public access with legal requirements. The case library and China Judgements Online are envisioned as complementary platforms, each serving specific purposes and ensuring legal information remains readily available to the public.
This initiative underscores the SPC’s dedication to enhancing legal knowledge, upholding judicial transparency, and providing high-quality legal services to all citizens. As legal information becomes more accessible and readily searchable, public trust in the judicial system can further strengthen.
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