Judicial Transparency by People's Courts

Foreword

　　"Justice Must Not Only be Done, but Must be Seen to be Done!" Judicial transparency is an important means to facilitate judicial fairness, prevent corruption in the judicial system and improve judicial credibility, and is the purpose of carrying out the constitutional and juristical principles and protecting the litigation rights of citizens as well as demonstrating modern legal civilization, and is also a must in comprehensively promoting the rule of law and accelerating the construction of China's rule of law.

　　People's courts have been paying high attention to judicial transparency and always treat it as an important constituent to deepen the reform in judicial system and working mechanism; for that reason, they take various measures to constantly expand the width and depth of judicial transparency, and make innovations on the forms and channels of judicial transparency so as to spend great efforts in building up an open, dynamic, transparent and convenient judicial mechanism.

　　In the new century and new stage, facing new requirements of the Party and the State, new expectations of the people and new challenges in the era of information, the deepening of judicial transparency has become more important and urgent. The 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party emphasizes on the promotion of transparency and standardization of the exercise and operation of powers, and the 3rd and 4th Plenary Sessions of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party propose to deepen judicial transparency and build up an open, dynamic, transparent and convenient judicial mechanism. As the legal construction process accelerates, the general public has stronger expectations on the transparency of judicial transparency. With the rapid development of big data, cloud computing and new media, the speed, models and patterns of information dissemination change greatly, and the demands by general public for judicial information increase, the promotion of judicial transparency under the new situation faces unprecedented opportunities as well as great challenges.

I. Basic Situation of the Deepening of Judicial Transparency by People's Courts

　　Promoting judicial transparency is an important task of the people's courts as well as an important way and method to protect the litigation information right, participation right, supervision right and expression right of the general public. With further advancement of judicial reform and information construction, the judicial transparency of people’s courts has achieved huge progress. Since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Supreme People's Court ("SPC") has made the promotion of judicial transparency an important reform measure for judicial reform and successively issued the Several Opinions on Promoting the Construction of Three Platforms for Judicial Transparency, the Provisions on Publishing Judgments, Verdicts and Conciliation Statements on Internet by People's Courts, the Several Opinions on Enforcement Process Transparency by People's Courts and other normative documents, which form the top-level design and overall layout for judicial transparency. The people’s courts throughout the country vigorously advance the data basis, network basis and information basis of judicial transparency by fully utilizing the opportunities of building people's court information 3.0 and building "smart courts", and accelerate comprehensive optimization and upgrade from the contents to the methods of such transparency.

　　Since 2013, the judicial transparency of the people's courts has driven into the fast lane. The people's courts not only rely on traditional means of transparency such as radio, television, newspapers, magazines and other traditional media as well as inviting citizens to attend the trials, but focus more on using the information technology to build four transparency platforms, i.e. trial process, court trial, judgment documents and enforcement information, throughout the country, thereby creating a diversified new pattern of judicial transparency supported by traditional media, governmental service websites, white paper, press conference, 12368 service hotline, Weibo, WeChat and other new media. The people's courts at all levels have been constantly updating the judicial transparency concept, improving the judicial transparency platforms, innovating the judicial transparency measures, constantly exploring the width and depth of the judicial transparency, enhancing the quality and effect of transparency, satisfying diversified judicial demands of the general public and effectively promoting judicial fairness, which have increased the judicial transparency and judicial credibility. It has been realized that disclosure activities run through the whole trial process and fully reflected the complete picture of litigation activities. The disclosure objects have been expanded from targeting the parties involved to targeting all litigant participants and the public, and the lawyer service platform and social public service platform have been built, so as to realize the organic bond of the point-to-point individual transparency and the general daily transparency.

　　Judicial transparency platform realizes optimization and upgrade. The performance of judicial transparency platforms of all kinds keeps optimizing and upgrading, as the functions of which are in on-going integration and improvement. High people's courts have completed the construction of four platforms for trial process disclosure, court trial disclosure, disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, and disclosure of enforcement information, and realized the connection with the national uniform public platform. The China Judicial Process Information Online has further enriched information resources, implemented scientific classification, improved convenient inquiry and opened interactive feedback channel, which have effectively improved user experience. The China Judgments Online has completed upgrade and transformation, expanded the application functions of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements and better satisfied the diversified needs of all kinds of users. High people’s courts have integrated the four platforms into their local litigation service website or court information disclosure website, and realized the information interconnection, function integration and uniform access of and to the disclosure platforms, to gradually form a disclosure platform layout characterized as complete online and offline connection, comprehensive information and full coverage of personalized needs.

　　Judicial transparency means realize crossover and integration. People's courts at all levels have taken the construction of "smart court" and "e-court" as the opportunity to greatly promote the crossover and integration of the judicial transparency and "Internet +", to advance the judicial transparency work by internet thinking centered on real-time, rapidness, huge number, interaction and experience. The people’s courts at all levels have made full use of the Internet and modern information technologies to constantly expand the channels and ways for the public to obtain judicial information by creating websites on administrative affairs of courts and 12368 litigation service platform, and making public Weibo and WeChat IDs, mobile news client and mobile APPs, and building up "courts on fingertips" and "courts in the era of mobile internet", so as to provide the three-dimensional, one-stop, comprehensive and interactive judicial disclosure services, therefore building up a more transparent and open judicial environment.

　　In-depth application of judicial information publicly accessible has been realized. The people's courts have realized full connection between judicial transparency and litigation service; with the aid of information technology, rendered it more convenient and efficient for the public to access judicial information, understand judicial developments, participate in judicial process, supervise judicial activities and feed back their opinions on judicial practices; with the aid of big data and cloud computation technology, caught and analyzed relevant data to take statistics on the pattern of judicial practices in cases of similar types, understand the views and opinions of the public on judicial practices, and analyze the public’s demands for and expectations of justice. With respect to publication of judgments, on the basis of publication of the contents of judgments, additional applications, such as search of legal provisions, links to typical cases of the same type, related theories and doctrines, have been developed to promote in-depth study of judicial judgments. The List of Dishonest Persons subject to Enforcement was published, to establish a unified investigation, control and punishment mechanism and promote the building of social credit system.

　　In October 2016, SPC President Zhou Qiang delivered a report to the 24th Session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress on advancing judicial transparency and promoting judicial fairness. The work of the people's courts on judicial transparency was highly affirmed by the Standing Committee and members of the National People's Congress.

II. Disclosure of Trial Process

　　Disclosing trial process is an important means to provide convenience for the general public to participate in litigation, protect the litigation rights of the parties to cases and satisfy and safeguard the needs and right to information of the general public, as well as a powerful measure to construct the open, dynamic, transparent and convenient judicial mechanism. From case acceptance and registration to service of judgments and verdicts and conciliation statements, the trial activities of a people’s court shall be operated on the aboveboard basis.

　　Establishment of China Judicial Process Information Disclosure Online

　　In November, 2014, China Judicial Process Information Disclosure Online officially launched, which means a national uniform judicial process information disclosure platform has been built up. By the end of 2015, all 31 high people's courts in China and the Production and Construction Corps Branch of the High People's Court of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have built up the uniform judicial process information disclosure platform for courts at three levels within their jurisdiction, and established the links to China Judicial Process Information Disclosure Online, thus realizing the full coverage and uniform docking of the information on trials in China. The SPC has provided all kinds of judicial process information and judicial transparency services to the parties concerned and social public on basis of China Judicial Process Online. Through their valid ID cards, cell phone number, inquiry code and password, the parties concerned and their agents ad litem may at any time log in to inquire and download relevant process information and materials and timely understand and supervise the progress of the cases. General public may directly inquire the organization setting, list of judges, litigation guidance, announcement of court session and other information of the SPC through the said website.

　　In 2015, the SPC completed the transformation and upgrading of China Judicial Process Information Disclosure Online and further enriched the information on judicial process nodes, realized the consultation and download of records of trial and videos of trial, launched the electronic service of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, and added such new functions as to contact the judge and enable reporting and complaints filing.

　　As of the end of December 2016, the China Judicial Process Information Online of the SPC has disclosed the information on trials of 520,000 cases, and published 1,838 announcements of court session, and receives total visits of over 985,000. From its trial opening in August 2014 to the end of 2016, the trial process information of all the 25,509 cases accepted by the SPC have been disclosed to the parties to cases and their agents ad litem, and the number of information disclosure items reaches 525,000, with 33,000 text messages successfully sent.

　　Courts at all levels have kept optimizing the content and method on the disclosure of information on judicial process, enhanced the high-tech involvement in information disclosure and improved the completeness and convenience for the parties concerned and the social public to obtain information on judicial process. Courts in Fujian have established a judicial information centralized control and management center, which will automatically capture and summarize on a real-time basis all kinds of information systems and relevant statistics analysis data of Fujian Province. Based on such database, the parties concerned and their agents ad litem may log in to inquire information about the details of the judicial process. Courts in Jiangxi have embedded 12368 voice service system and text message system into the online case handling system and comprehensive trial service platform, which has changed passive inquiry into active pushing and realized the notification of any important change in the process nodes to the presiding judge and the parties concerned simultaneously and right after such change by telephone, text message, WeChat and other means. Courts in Jilin have established "e-court" to expand the disclosure channels for disclosure of information on judicial process, and take advantage of the offline electronic display screens, touch screens and phone operator service and online website, text message, telephone voicemail, Weibo, WeChat, mobile APPs and other public channels to form the offline and online full coverage disclosure system. Courts in Jiangsu have elaborated the content of process nodes to cover eight stages including acceptance of case, formation of collegial panel, court session, procedure conversion, change in trial period and close of case, and promoted the whole-process disclosure of information on trials of cases. The Fourth Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing has converted the governmental service website, official Weibo ID, WeChat ID and other litigation service content into 18 QR codes, and the parties concerned may obtain case information and judicial service by simply swiping the QR code.

　　Promotion of Dematerialization and Networking of Archives and Litigation Materials

　　The SPC formulated the guidelines on promoting simultaneous production and in-depth application of electronic case files in people's courts, further improving the scope and mechanism of disclosure of electronic case files and enhancing the efforts of disclosure in an all-round way. Based on digital technologies, people's courts have conducted dematerialization of the materials generated in the judicial process such as litigation archives, case files and records of trial, and established electronic files, audios, videos and other digital materials to legally, timely and conveniently make public to the parties concerned and the society. Courts in Shandong have established electronic case files for all cases, and all cases in trial will have entire synchronous audio and video recording. And all electronic case files and court trial recordings are available to the parties to cases for consulting, and information on trial process from the date of acceptance of a case will be disclosed to the parties to such case. Courts in Jiangsu have combined the dematerialization and networking of case files, and timely publish any material that may be disclosed according to the laws when promoting the digitalization of the physical materials to form electronic case files, so that the parties concerned and the lawyers may apply for access to the case files and other materials through internet. The courts in Beijing have entered 380 million pages of litigation files on line, and made available the litigation files on line since July 1, 2016, enabling the parties concerned and their agents ad litem to access, download and print electronic files on line at their homes.

　　Promotion of the Openness of Case Filing and Litigation Service

　　Case filing is the first window where a court faces the parties concerned and the general public, and the disclosure content and function thereof keeps expanding and upgrading, and has extended from the single case filing consultancy to the all-around litigation services. People's courts at all levels have generally established the litigation service center, in which electronic touch screens and electronic bulletins, as well as document sample desk and litigation guidance desk are equipped to provide the parties concerned and the public with litigation guideline and litigation risk disclosure letter, as well as case filing information and litigation services.

　　In order to accommodate themselves to the changes and challenges brought by the reform in registration system, people's courts at all levels have explicitly specified the scope of case filing and the circumstance under which case filing is not registered in accordance with the law, and advocated such measures as notification of rights, risk disclosure and litigation guidance. For cases which shall be accepted according to the laws, the people's courts have been insisting on accepting and dealing with them, and the onsite case filing registration rate exceeds 95%. For cases failing to meet the conditions for case filing, the people's courts shall timely explain to make the parties concerned understand how to exercise the right to sue. The people's courts shall elaborate the provisions on the essential requirements on indictments, prepare indictment sample and provide the parties concerned with demonstration and guidance, and for materials failing to meet relevant provisions in filing a lawsuit, the people's courts shall notify the parties concerned at once and in full.

　　Many courts have explored the implementation of online case filing and remote case filing. Courts in Jiangsu have provided "integrated" online litigation service, and utilized one window to provide online case filing, online service of litigation documents, online case files consulting, online inquiry, online submission of litigation materials, online interview with the judge, online petition and dozens of other litigation services. Nanjing Intermediate People's Court of Jiangsu Province has launched the "Mobile APP Online Litigation Service Platform" to allow online case filing and service of litigation documents and provide 13 litigation services including information inquiry to facilitate the public to file a case and improve the transparency of the case filing work.

　　People's courts at all levels are proactively building up the lawyer service platform to provide all-around, personalized and professional litigation services to lawyers. On December 30, 2015, the lawyer service platform of the SPC officially launched to provide online case filing, online case files consulting, case information inquiry, electronic delivery, judge contacting and other services to lawyers. As of the end of 2016, the platform has collected the 21,846 pieces of information about law firms and entered the information of about 88,000 lawyers. The lawyer service platform launched by courts in Shanghai can provide more than 20 services for lawyers including online case filing, online inquiry and automatic avoidance of overlapping of schedule for court session. All the 1,393 law firms in Shanghai are using the platform. As of the end of 2016, the platform has received 1.86 million visits in total, or more than 2,500 visits every day, and accepted online filing of 30,600 cases, with a success rate of online filing of 92.4%, up 4.3% year on year. The lawyers can now complete the case filing without going to the court personally and the formalities for case become more convenient.

　　Pushing forward the Online Openness of Petition Cases through Letters and Visits

　　In order to reduce the burden of the peoples to make petitions through letters and visits, enhance the acceptance ratio of the petition cases through letters and visits and reinforce the information disclosure, in February, 2014, the SPC officially launched the Online Platform for Petition Cases through Letters and Visits providing many functions such as online acceptance of petitions, acceptance of complaints, guidelines for petitions, and guidelines on laws and regulations to realize the disclosure of information on petition cases through letters and visits. By now, the platform has more than 32,000 registered users, recorded 7,670 cases and closed 6,232 cases. All local people’s courts have enhanced the working mechanism towards petition cases through letters and visits, and proactively promoted the disclosure of information on petition cases through letters and visits, by creating professional online platform for petition cases through letters and visits, setting up module for petition cases through letters and visits on the judicial transparency website and other means. Courts in Hubei, Hunan, Gansu have carried out online acceptance and online reply for petition cases by dedicated online platform for petition cases through letters and visits.

　　Promotion of Hearing Disclosure

　　The promotion of hearing disclosure is an important measure to guarantee the people to participate in judicial activities and supervise judicial work. People's courts at all levels shall deepen the hearing disclosure of cases involving national compensation, objection to jurisdiction, probation, retrial, commutation and parole, or objection to enforcement, and expand the hearing subjects, improve the hearing procedures and enhance the publicity and transparency. By bulletins, websites, Weibo and other platforms, courts in Gansu have timely disclosed to the society the cause, time, place and members of collegial panel of the hearing and notified the rights, obligations and other contents of the participants to the hearing, invited NPC members, CPPCC members, people’s procuratorates, people's mediation organizations and relevant departmental staff to participate in hearing. In 2014, the retrial examination hearing rate of courts in Gansu Province reached 24.33%. Courts in Guangdong Province have carried out over 1,000 various public hearings since 2013, and the commutation case hearing rate reached 100%. Courts in Jilin have opened hearing disclosure column on their judicial transparency websites, which enables the public to check all kinds of hearing information on a real-time basis and make online application for attending case trials as observers.

　　Development of the Disclosure of Commutation, Parole and Serving Sentence outside Prison Temporarily

　　Implementing the disclosure system for cases of commutation, parole, and serving sentence outside prison temporarily is an important measure to strengthen the judicial human right guarantee, promote the disclosure and impartiality of the criminal punishment enforcement and realize the community correction function of the criminal punishment. The SPC has launched the website of disclosure of information on commutation, parole or serving sentence outside prison temporarily adjudicated by courts in China, to ensure the disclosure and impartiality of the cases of commutation, parole or serving sentence outside prison temporarily. People’s courts at all levels shall make greater efforts in the disclosure of cases of commutation, parole and serving sentence outside prison temporarily in accordance with the requirements of "Five Alls" (i.e. For all cases of commutation, parole and serving sentence outside prison temporarily, the commutation or parole recommendation or the application for serving sentence outside prison temporarily and other materials shall be legally disclosed to the general public after such cases are registered; for all cases of commutation or parole of criminals committed duty-related crimes, organized crimes related to gangs and financial crimes, such cases shall be legally heard in public; for all public hearing of cases of commutation or parole of criminals committed duty-related crimes, organized crimes related to gangs and financial crimes, NPC members, CPPCC members or relevant representatives shall be invited to attend the court trial; for all judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements of the cases of commutation, parole or serving sentence outside prison temporarily, they shall be legally disclosed on China Judgments Online; and for all personnel of the courts who have acted against discipline or laws, or even constituted a crime during his/her handling of the cases of commutation, parole and serving sentence outside prison temporarily, they shall be legally investigated liabilities and given heavier punishment for that.) The public trial rate of Commutation cases tried and closed in Courts in Guangdong in total from 2014 till nowreaches 100% and all of them have been disclosed online. Relying on information means, courts in Fujian have launched the commutation and parole cases disclosure and publishing system, and the parties concerned and the general public may search and inquire information on commutation and parole by entering into the case number, name of criminal and the name of crime.

　　All local people's courts shall proactively promote the construction of the commutation and parole working mechanism to take digital courts within prison as their focuses, in order to enhance the trial transparency of commutation and parole cases. Hebei Hengshui Intermediate People’s Court has used technological court within prisons to greatly promote the disclosure and transparency of commutation and parole, and the parole case trial rate and the commutation case trial rate (for corruption and malfeasance cases with high social concerns) have both reached 100%. Courts in Jiangsu and the Jiangsu Bureau of Prisons have jointly promoted the construction of the remote court session system for commutation and parole cases, explored remote court trial and remote attendance as observer, and widely accepted external supervision. Jiangsu Xuzhou Intermediate People's Court has established the working mechanism of "accompanying by judge, inspecting with records, making checks at all levels, and enabling social supervision and regular announcement" for cases of serving sentence outside prison temporarily, and invited the people’s procuratorate, NPC members and CPPCC members to carry out valid supervision over the cases of serving sentence outside prison temporarily, in order to enhance the transparency of the examination over severing sentence outside prison temporarily.

　　Strengthening the Disclosure of Information on Adjudicative Committee

　　The reform in the system of adjudicative committee has been promoted to strengthen the transparency of the work of the adjudicative committee. The judicial interpretations, normative documents and other information discussed and adopted by the SPC Adjudicative Committee will be timely disclosed to the public by its official website, Weibo and mobile TV on the same day. The SPC also invites NPC members, CPPCC members and experts and scholars to attend the meeting of the adjudicative committee to seriously hear their opinions and suggestions.

　　Enhancement of the Disclosure of Information on Bankruptcy Reorganization Cases

　　On July 27, 2016, the SPC printed and distributed the Regulations on Information Disclosure of Enterprise Bankruptcy Cases, to regulate the information disclosure of enterprise bankruptcy cases. On August 1, 2016, the Information Website of National Enterprise Bankruptcy Reorganization Cases has been officially launched. The Information Website consists of three parts, namely, the information internet of national enterprise bankruptcy reorganization cases, work platform for judges of enterprise bankruptcy cases, and work platform for bankruptcy administrators, of which, the information internet of national enterprise bankruptcy reorganization cases is an internet information website that publishes all kinds of information on bankruptcy cases by classification in accordance with the principle of full disclosure of the case process, and the investors can obtain the information and status of the debtor enterprises of relevant cases in the column of information disclosure of debtors, and may publish investment demands, subscribe dynamic information on debtor enterprises, and carry out interactive communication with the bankruptcy administrator and other activities through the website. Creditors, debtors and contributors as well as other relevant case subjects may legally exercise relevant rights provided by the Bankruptcy Law through the website, and make appointment for case filing, declaration for creditor's rights, submission of objection application, participation in the meeting of the creditors, voting and conducting other online activities.

III. Openness of Court Trial

　　Openness of court trial is the most direct way and means for people to understand judicial adjudication and obtain judicial recognition. With the wide application of internet and the development of information technology in recent years, the openness of court trial keeps making innovations on the method, expanding the target and enlarging the influence.

　　Establishment of China Court Trial Online

　　On December 11, 2013, China Court's Live Trial Website has been officially launched to provide citizens with live broadcasting and recording of court trial online. China Courts' Network launched the network live broadcasting column to make graphic live broadcasting of major cases tried by people's courts at all levels. People’s courts at all levels have paid high attention to the trial disclosure of major cases and important cases, and made the Archangelos Gabriel shipwreck salvage retrial case, the administrative dispute serial case of Jordon's trademark dispute and other cases of great social concerns on live by Weibo, Internet live broadcasting and other means, and obtained good results. The people’s courts at all levels have provided live broadcasting of trials of 439,000 cases on the Internet, attracting more than 1.7 billion viewers in total.

　　On September 27, 2016, the SPC officially launched China Court Trial Online on the basis of complete transformation, integration and upgrading of China Court's Live Trial Website. The platform realizes uniform gathering and authoritative punishing of court trial videos of people's courts at all levels in China, and there are 1,389 local courts that have realized the connection with China Court Trial Online. Through this platform, general public may select to watch the live case trial of China courts at real time, get to know about notice of live broadcasting of trial of hotly-debated cases, watch court trial videos on-demand, get access to information of court trial live broadcasting statistics, and bookmark and share the same through Weibo and WeChat, and this has truly realized the full coverage, real-time interconnection and in-depth disclosure of information on court trials and advanced the disclosure of the court trial into a new stage.

　　Promotion of the Legal Openness of SPC Court Trial

　　Since July 1, 2016, live broadcasting may be carried out through internet for the court trial of, in principles, any and all cases which shall be tried publicly by the SPC according to the laws. On April 26, 2016, the trial of the case of administrative dispute over Michael Jordan’s trademark chaired by Judge Tao Kaiyuan, Vice President of the SPC, was broadcast live on www.chinacourt.org and the court channel of www.sina.com.cn. On July 1, 2016, the trial of a case of mining right dispute at the SPC's Second Circuit Court was broadcast live on the China Court Trial Online. On July 7, 2016, a shipwreck salvage dispute case presiding by HE Rong, vice president and associate justice of the SPC was broadcasted live on China Court’s Live Trial Website. Within less than half a year since the launch of live broadcasting of trials, the SPC’s court trial live broadcasting has received more than 96,000 views and 1.14 billion on-demand accesses.

　　Promotion of the Legal Openness of Trials by Courts at All Levels

　　People's courts at all levels have fully relied on the information means and internet platforms to strengthen the fusion of court trial disclosure and different media forms and extensively make use of television, network, Weibo, WeChat and other media to carry out court trial live broadcasting. Courts in Anhui have established WeChat IDs and generated QR Codes to proactively explore the way to access to court trial videos at any time by Weibo and WeChat. The public may watch the live broadcasting or videos of court trial at any time by cell phone and other mobile terminals or with the aid of the Sina Cloud Platform. The courts at all levels in Tianjin have established live courts, tape-recorded and videotaped the whole course of trials, and broadcast live 1,365 cases that were major and typical in nature, attracted wide attention of the society and were of legal education significance on the Internet in 2016. Since the launch of the "full-time" court trial network live broadcasting platform in September, 2014, courts in Guangzhou have basically realized the new normal of court trial live broadcasting characterized as "live broadcasting available every day in courts and available by every judge". The courts in Henan established more than 400 courts providing live video broadcasting, and have live-broadcasted the trials of more than 140,000 cases in total. Chongqing High People’s Court has formulated and implemented the Court Trial Live Broadcasting Rules and other rules to strengthen the synchronous audio and video recordings of court trials and standardize the live broadcasting of court trials of cases. Chongqing First Intermediate People’s Court has carried out "bi-network synchronous live broadcasting" by its official Weibo ID and official website, and the live broadcasting of the Case of JDB v. Wong Lo Kat over Unfair Competition tried by the Court has been viewed by more than 150,000 times. From January 7 to 8, 2016, Beijing Haidian People’s Court has made live broadcasting of the whole trial of the case of "Qvodplay" suspected of seeking profits by spreading pornographic items, which lasted for more than 20 hours. And there are over one (1) million audience watching the videos during the live broadcasting on a cumulative basis, and over 40,000 persons watching the live broadcasting simultaneously to the maximum, as well as 27 long Weibo messages webcasting the whole court trial, the cumulative hits of which reached over 36 million. The Hefei Intermediate People's Court in Anhui and many other courts have introduced court trial live broadcasting into the electronic screen of the litigation service centers and city square LED screens, to directly show the court trial scenes to the general public.

　　Strengthening Court Trial Disclosure System and Technical Guarantee

　　On May 1, 2016, the newly amended Court Rules of the People's Republic of China has duly come into force and made explicit provision on the method and content of disclosure of information on courts, scope, subject and procedure of cases allowing attendance and observation of the court trial, and the circumstances under which live broadcasting of court trial is allowed and other content, which provides system assurance for the disclosure of court trial. All local courts keep improving their working mechanism and technical means for attendance and observation of court trial to secure the rights of the citizens to attend and observe the court trials. Courts in Anhui will proactively invite NPC members, CPPCC members and enforcement supervisors and other persons with certain social influence to attend and observe the court trial of cases of wide social concerns and relatively large social influence. Since 2013, the courts at three levels in Anhui Province have invited about 22,000 NPC members, CPPCC members and persons from all walks of life in total to attend and observe the court trial. Courts in Jiangsu have explored the court trial attendance and observation seats e-booking service, and Nanjing Intermediate People's Court has launched the Platform for Inviting People to Attend and Observe Court Trials through Network on its court website, which has provided convenience for the citizens to attend and observe court trials.

　　All local courts have made great efforts in promoting the construction of technological court and digital court, and laid solid technology and hardware foundation for the disclosure of court trials. By August of 2016, courts at all levels in China have built up over 20,000 technological courts, and realized the synchronous audio and video recording, e-storage, regular backup and long-term preservation of court trial activities for the whole court trial. Courts in Jiangxi have taken technological court to interconnect the scene of court trials with the signal of electronic display screen and touch screen at the litigation service hall to conduct real-time transmission and live broadcasting of the scene of court trial. Courts in Jiangsu have promoted the "three synchronous" practices, namely, synchronous audio and video recording, synchronous records and synchronous display of court trial records, and all 2,279 scientific trial courts in Jiangsu province have realized the "three synchronous" practices for court trial, and have basically realized "recording every trial" of the case that is tried at court.

IV. Disclosure of Judgments, Verdicts and Conciliation Statements

　　Judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements are the final products of the trial work of a people's court, and are important carriers that carry all litigation activities, settle disputes and reflect judicial competence. The promotion of the legal, timely and complete disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements is an important measure to promote improvement of judicial capacity and assure judicial fairness.

　　Establishment of China Judgments Online

　　On July 1, 2013, the national uniform platform for disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements—China Judgments Online, has been officially launched. Currently, people's courts at all levels in China will upload their judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements to China Judgments Online, and this has realized the full coverage of courts in China, case types and presiding judges. On December 15, 2015, China Judgments Online underwent a complete transformation and upgrading and added such functions as one-key intelligent search, search for relevant judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements and personalized service, and realized the disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements in minority language, and launched the view and download function for judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements in Mongolian, Tibetan, Uighur language, Korean and Kazakh to better satisfy the diversified needs of the public. On August 30, 2016, the APP mobile client of China Judgments Online was duly launched.

　　From August of 2016, the daily PV of China Judgments Online has exceeded 20 million hits, and the PV growth trend is obvious. By the end of 2016, China Judgments Online has disclosed more than 25.72 million judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, the website PV has broken 4.7 billion hits, and its users are from more than 190 countries and regions in the world, and over 500 million PV is from overseas, of which, the PV from North America has exceeded 100 million. The website has become the largest website for judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements in the world, and world-class universities like Harvard University, Yale University and Stanford University have taken the judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements published by China Judgments Online as their research objects. The SPC has newly prepared and modified 568 templates of instruments for civil actions and 132 templates of instruments for administrative actions, all of which are made available to the public free of charge, so as to improve the standardization of legal instruments.

　　Improvement of the System and Mechanism for Uploading Judgments, Verdicts and Conciliation Statements

　　In order to guarantee the standardization and orderliness of the uploading of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, on August 30, 2016, the SPC published the amended Regulations on Online Publication of Judgments, Verdicts and Conciliation Statements by People’s Courts, which have itemized the type of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements that ought to be disclosed, and judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements shall be published on the internet other than those involving State secrets or juvenile delinquency, cases closed by mediation or confirming the validity of mediation agreement (except for those which are necessary to disclose for the purpose of protecting the national interest, social public benefits and legitimate rights and interests of others), divorce litigation or those involving the custody and guardianship of minor children. Judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements "involving personal privacy" shall only be disclosed online after concealing the "content involving personal privacy", and the judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements of first instance which have been appealed or protested shall also be disclosed, and establish organic connection with those of second instance. For those judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements that are not made public, except for those may divulge State secrets, the case number, trial court, date of adjudication and reasons for non-disclosure are requested to be published on China Judgments Online.

　　In addition, the new regulations require the transformation of the work mode for disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements from the traditional mode of centralized uploading by special institution to the mode of one-click automatic publication by the presiding judge on the case handling platform. The complaint and opinion handling mechanism for public feedback and the public supervision mechanism for judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements have been established to fully accept the supervision over the work of the disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements by all walks of life, so as to ensure the full disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements that should be disclosed.

　　People's courts at all levels have kept refining the scope, requirements and procedures for uploading of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, improved the construction of the technology system for disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, and greatly promoted the uploading of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements. Courts in Beijing, Shanghai, Zengjiang, Jiangxi and Chongqing have embedded into the online case handling system such functions as intelligent correction, automatic formatting, privacy shielding, format handling and one-key access for judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, and this has enhanced the automation level of the uploading of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements. Guangzhou Maritime Court has relied on its English website to translate 100 judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements into English and disclose them online.

　　Establishment of "Faxin", a Digital Network Service Platform for Application of Chinese Laws

　　People's courts explored new modes for application of information on judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, and made full use of big data and cloud computing technology to promote the in-depth application of the disclosed information on judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements. On March 31, 2016, the digital network service platform for application of Chinese laws, "Faxin", developed by the SPC has been officially launched. Based on the information on judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, Faxin Platform carries out in-depth processing, aggregation and analysis of lots of legal provisions, case gist, legal views and information on judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, and makes intelligent push for cases of the same type, so as to satisfy the precise needs of judges, lawyers, scholars and general public on laws, cases and professional knowledge. Currently, Faxin Platform has covered 20 million judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, typical cases, law documents, academic essays and other types of legal literature, amounting to over 10 billion Chinese characters. The Platform will, based on the operation and improvement situation, gradually open to the whole society and provide the public with more convenient, intelligent and precise litigation services and legal services.

　　Establishment of Judicial Case Study Institute and Launch of China Judicial Case Online

　　On September 30, 2016, the SPC officially formed the Judicial Case Study Institute and launched the Judicial Case Online to promote the disclosure and publicity of Chinese and foreign typical cases. Judicial Case Online has relied on big data technologies and internet to carry out search, collection, systemization and publication of lots of cases, and intelligently generated typical cases with public recognition by the recommendations, comments, likes of the audience and other interactive feedback methods with the audience. There will be an expert comment column on Judicial Case Online for carrying out in-depth analysis and interpretation of the pushed typical cases to form clearer and more specific social guidance. The Judicial Case Study Institute will regularly carry out inter-translation for the foreign and overseas judicial cases and judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements to strengthen the Chinese and foreign judicial communication, and display the judgment level of Chinese judges in international social publicity.

V. Disclosure of Enforcement Information

　　The disclosure of enforcement information is an important content in the judicial transparency of people's courts, and an important means to promote the enforcement work of the courts, solve issues causing difficulties in enforcement and facilitate the construction of social credit system. People's courts at all levels shall keep promoting the construction of the enforcement information disclosure platform, strengthening the comprehensive utilization of enforcement information and effectively facilitating the solving of issues causing difficulties in enforcement.

　　Establishment of China Enforcement Information Disclosure Website

　　On November 1, 2014, China Enforcement Information Disclosure Website has been officially launched and become the national uniform enforcement information disclosure platform. Through the platform, the public may inquire the information of list of dishonest persons subject to enforcement, information on the persons subject to enforcement, enforcement case process information and judgment enforcement information. The parties to cases may inquire through the China Enforcement Information Online about the basic information of unclosed enforcement cases, information of list of dishonest persons subject to enforcement and judgment enforcement information, and may log on the Website to inquire about the procedure information of the case by their names, ID card numbers and enforcement case numbers, including the information on case registration for enforcement, enforcement personnel, change in enforcement procedure, enforcement measures, disposal of properties subject to enforcement, enforcement award, allocation of amounts from enforcement, probation of enforcement, suspension of enforcement and close of enforcement, and may follow up the progress of the enforcement case. The general public may conveniently inquire through the Enforcement Information Online about the standards for registration of enforcement cases, launch procedures, enforcement charging standards and basis, and moratorium, reduction or exemption of enforcement fee, enforcement risk warning, reward announcement and auction announcement, etc.

　　On September 14, 2016, the SPC’s "China Enforcement" WeChat Official Account ID was duly launched, and has since then provided such functions as enforcement information inquiry, enforcement rule publication, interpretation of laws and regulations and disclosure of enforcement documents, so as to provide convenience to the general public to get access to the enforcement work information and enjoy judicial services at anytime anywhere. By the end of 2016, the enforcement information disclosure platform has cumulatively published the information on 6.44 million dishonest persons subject to enforcement, and 40.65 million pieces of information on persons subject to enforcement, and completed 29.16 million inquiries about information of enforcement cases.

　　All local courts have launched enforcement information disclosure websites or set up disclosure column successively, and made innovations on the disclosure method, promoted the disclosure of enforcement information and realized the connection and docking with China Enforcement Information Disclosure Website to enable real-time update. At present, courts in Beijing have realized the automatic collection and dynamic publishing of enforcement information, and the real-time release of number of cases under enforcement by courts at all levels in Beijing, and are able to provide real-time public data for the social credit system. All enforcement command centers in Jiangsu province will make public the list of persons subject to enforcement and the hotline for reporting clues about the properties of such persons, and have built up an enforcement information interactive platform online to realize timely feedback on the reported property clues concerning the persons subject to enforcement. Courts in Jiangxi have taken the comprehensive adjudication service platform as the basic platform supported by such platforms as electronic announcement screen, touch screen, Weibo, WeChat Official Account ID and 12368 telephone service, to timely disclose to the parties to a case and their entrusted agents the information on the process nodes, progress status, taken enforcement measures and relevant materials of the enforcement case, and disclose to the general public enforcement service information, enforcement announcement information, enforcement work dynamic information, enforcement laws and regulations and other public information. Courts in Guangdong have established the "online enforcement bureau" and realized online real-time broadcasting of information on the progress of enforcement case basically covering the whole province, and the online circulation and operation of the work content, and notified the parties concerned by text message about the enforcement log automatically generated by the system. Courts in Shanghai have established the whole process publication mechanism for information on enforcement case, refined the enforcement procedure into 31 nodes, pushed the same to relevant parties to a case proactively through 12368 litigation service platform, and realized the full disclosure of the enforcement process information. Courts in Liaoning have explored the joint exposure system of the dishonored persons subject to enforcement, and opened an exposure column of dishonored persons subject to enforcement on Liaoning Daily and other cooperation media, and published the information of list of dishonored persons subject to enforcement and typical dishonor cases. Courts in Ningxia have established the online enforcement command center, through which they have realized the full disclosure of enforcement announcement, enforcement laws and regulations, handling guidance, case handling procedure, list of dishonored persons subject to enforcement, unclosed enforcement cases, videos and audios of the enforcement scenes and other enforcement information. Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court has taken the online litigation service platform for courts in Shenzhen (http://ssfw.szcourt.gov.cn) as the subject and taken advantage of the hawk-eye investigation and control network and the intensive aurora system, to build up a uniform enforcement information disclosure platform to include information of the persons subject to enforcement into the Shenzhen Credit Website (http://www.szcredit.com.cn) to enhance the enforcement efficiency. The Intermediate People's Court in Xi'an, Shaanxi has explored the introduction of simultaneous video broadcasting online to the significant enforcement activities to expand the scope of enforcement disclosure, and enhance the transparency of enforcement work.

　　Establishment of Mechanism for Enforcement Information Sharing and Joint Punishment against Dishonored Persons Subject to Enforcement

　　The SPC has promoted and established the mechanism for enforcement information sharing, strengthened the construction of the online enforcement investigation and control mechanism with public security organs, land and resources bureaus, housing and urban-rural development departments, finance departments, industrial and commercial administration and other assistant enforcement entities, redoubled the efforts in docking with the credit platform of railways, civil aviation, industrial and commercial administration, banking financial institutions and relevant departments, and researched and developed the settlement account inquiry software with the People's Bank of China, and concluded agreement with and jointly issued documents with the China Banking Regulatory Commission, and realized the full coverage by means of the investigation and control via the networks of financial institutions; entered into collaboration agreement with Alipay and Tenpay and opened special lines to extend the cooperation field investigated and controlled from traditional banks to e-banking; circulated the information of list of dishonored persons subject to enforcement to relevant departments to jointly carry out credit punishment, restrict the dishonored persons subject to enforcement to purchase soft berth ticket of trains, tickets for first-class seats or above of CRH and CHSR, air tickets or apply for loans or credit cards, and forbid them to take office as legal representative or senior executive of the enterprise, so as to facilitate the dishonored persons subject to enforcement to actively perform the enforcement obligation.

　　Currently, the SPC has carried out credit punishment against the dishonored persons subject to enforcement jointly with more than 40 national authorities and institutions with social administration function, and the scope of punishment has extended from realistic social activities to virtual network space, so as to fully restrict the consumption of the dishonored persons subject to enforcement that is not necessary for living or operation, and the restriction subject has been extended from natural person to the entity of the person subject to enforcement and the legal representative, principal, directly responsible person who affects the discharge of debts or actual controller of such entity. By the end of 2016, there are 6.44 million dishonest persons subject to enforcement made public, and 5.76 million persons have been prevented from purchase of air tickets and 2.07 million persons from purchase of soft berth ticket of trains or tickets for first-class seats or above of CRH and CHSR. This has given full play of the role of enforcement disclosure information in the construction of the social credit system.

　　Implementation of Online Judicial Auction

　　The implementation of online judicial auction is an important means to enhance the openness and transparency of the enforcement work and carry out the disclosure of enforcement information. On August 3, 2016, the SPC issued the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning Online Judicial Auction by People's Courts to make specific legal provisions on such issues as subject, mechanism, procedure, legal effect and assumption of liability of and for online auction and provide legal basis for the online auction system. All local people's courts have combined the local actuality and utilized internet thinking and mode to widely promote online auction system. So far, more than 1,600 courts from 28 province-level regions have joined the judicial auction platform on www.taobao.com, and have conducted more than 320,000 online auctions, put 150,000 pieces of items up for auction, and realized sales of more than RMB190 billion in total, with 89% of items successfully sold by auction at a premium rate of 42% on average, and saving commissions amounting to RMB4.2 billion for the parties concerned. Courts in Zhejiang launched online judicial auction platform with Taobao.com in June, 2012, and the courts have legally and independently disposed the properties involved in litigation by e-bidding, and all links of auction will be carried out on internet, and no commission or other charge will be collected for that. This has realized the whole process disclosure of the judicial auction, maximized the realization value of the assets under auction and squeezed the room for black box operation. Starting from the end of 2013, courts in Jiangsu cooperated with Taobao.com and realized the joining of courts at three levels into the judicial auction platform on Taobao.com and that all auction links are completed openly online. From 2014 to 2015, courts in Jiangsu has sold 11,241 articles at online auction, with a transaction amount totaling about RMB30 billion. Courts in Shanghai have established the judicial entrustment management platform to have it carried out uniform and centralized management of the judicial entrustment business such as audit, price appraisal, evaluation and auction.

VI. Enriching and Innovating the Content and Form of Judicial Transparency

　　With the development of the information era, the demand of the general public for judicial information is increasing. Progress of the internet and new media technologies have brought opportunities and challenges to the development of judicial transparency. People's courts have continuously expanded the breadth of judicial transparency, made innovation on measures concerning judicial transparency and promoted further development of the judicial transparency, by taking judicial reform and informatization construction as the motivating factor.

　　Improvement of the Regular Release of Judicial Information

　　People's courts at all levels shall continuously improve the regular release mechanism for all kinds of judicial information, and realize the normalization of information disclosure and enhance the authoritativeness of the information release, by means of publication of work reports and whitepapers, etc.

　　The SPC has regularly published the Bulletin of the Supreme People's Court, the Work Report of the Supreme People's Court and the Annual Work Report of People's Courts (in Chinese and English) and other materials in an attempt to disclose judicial documents, significant cases and court work to the general public both at home and abroad. The SPC has carried out such theme activities in the form of publicity week such as "IPR Day" and has published China IPR Judicial Protection Status White Paper, Top 10 IPR Cases of the Year and Top 50 Typical Cases of the Year and other materials to show our good image in IPR judicial protection. In September, 2014, the SPC issued the first Maritime Trial White Paper to publish Top 10 Maritime Trial Cases, which demonstrates our trial competence and level in maritime and marine cases. On February 26, 2016, the SPC issued the first Judicial Reform Whitepaper to systematically introduce the progress of the judicial reform of people’s courts since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party. On July 27, 2016, the SPC issued the first Environmental Resources Trial Whitepaper to fully reflect the environmental resources trial work in China in recent years. The people's courts at all levels have proactively accommodated to the demand of the times of big data, analyzed case information and data, released professional trial white papers in administration, finance, bankruptcy, protection of rights and interests of consumers, and protection of intellectual property rights, and intensified their efforts in disclosing information on all professional trial fields.

　　The people's courts at all levels have strengthened court information disclosure in connection with trial work. The general public is now able to consult information regarding court institutions, crew of the court, judicial transparency operation guide, litigation guide, court trial announcement, hearing announcement and trial guidance documents, through administrative affairs disclosure website, court bulletin, electronic screen and case information inquiry platform. Many courts will disclose some judicial statistics data, research and survey results, information on the "three public expenses" of courts and information on acceptance of supervision by people’s courts that do not involve any State secret, so as to satisfy the public's demand for judicial information to the maximum extent.

　　Establishment and Improvement of the System of Press Conference

　　People's courts at all levels has established and improved the system of press conference and enhanced the authoritative release mechanism for major judicial information. Since January 1, 2015, the courts in China have started to carry out the monthly meeting system for press release. The SPC has kept expanding the functions of the system of press release and enlarged the influence of press release. From 2013 to 2016, the SPC has held 86 press conferences, issued 58 judicial papers and circulated 28 reports on work progress.

　　The SPC has kept deepening the system of publication of guiding cases and typical cases. By the end of 2016, 77 guiding cases have been published in 15 publications. From January 2015 to December 2016, 484 typical cases in total have been made public through briefings on typical cases. On August 29, 2014, the SPC published the Top 10 Land Acquisition and Demolition Cases Tried by People’s Courts, and on September 12, 2014, the SPC published Top 10 Government Information Disclosure Cases; on January 15, 2015, the SPC published the Top 10 Administrative Nonfeasance Cases; on April 20, 2015, the SPC published the Top 10 Intellectual Property Rights Cases Tried by People's Courts in 2014 and the Top 10 Innovational Intellectual Property Rights Cases Tried by People’s Courts in 2014; and the like.

　　Building up Multifunctional Website of Administrative Affairs of Courts

　　People's courts at all levels have taken the website of the administrative affairs of courts as the most important platform for judicial transparency, and proactively built up the comprehensive website of administrative affairs of courts integrating such functions as judicial transparency, litigation service, judicial supervision and interactive contact. People's courts at all levels have built up links to the platforms of judicial process information disclosure, trial disclosure by means of live broadcasting, judgments disclosure and enforcement information disclosure on the official website, so as to provide convenience to the general public to access to several judicial transparency services from one login entry. On December 31, 2014, the administrative affairs website of the SPC completed its comprehensive revision and update, and the litigation service website was officially launched, which will facilitate the parties to a case to consult and inquire, make appointments for case registration, read case files online and contact judges. On December 15, 2015, the SPC opened its English website to satisfy the recognition needs of international community on China’s justice.

　　All local people's courts shall strengthen the timely update of the content on the websites, and strive to explore the conversion from one-way information publishing platform to a bi-directional interactive platform with functions such as online appointment for case registration, inquiry, business handling, consulting, Q&A and download. Courts in Beijing have built up the Beijing Court Trial Information Website (http://www.bjcourt.gov.cn/) in late December, 2013, which has become a comprehensive platform for judicial transparency and online services by courts in Beijing, with the functions of information release, online services and rapid inquiry. Zhejiang Court Disclosure Website (http://www.zjsfgkw.cn/) started its service in July, 2014 and connected all people's courts in Zhejiang province by internet technologies. Its backstage data center will uniformly, automatically and safely transmit judicial transparency information to it. The parties to a case can inquire case information by their passwords, and general public and parties to a case may consult litigation guideline, judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, judicial documents and instruments, information on dishonest persons subject to enforcement and enforcement auction and other judicial information, and may watch court trial live broadcasting and videos, make an appointment to attend and hear the court trials, read case files online and carry out online settlement and otherwise. The Website has simultaneously operated a mobile micro website, and supports mobile phone, iPad and other mobile platform terminals and browsers, and realizes access at any time anywhere with any device. Courts in Jilin have established the specialized judicial information disclosure website to validly link the official website of the court, e-court of Jilin and judicial transparency platform, and divided the disclosed information into four (4) top-level categories, namely, disclosure of trial affairs, disclosure of judgments, verdicts and conciliation statements, disclosure of trial process and disclosure of enforcement information, in terms of setting of platform columns. There are 18 second-level categories including organization structure, instructions to litigation, petitions through letters and visits, commutation and parole, and enforcement announcement, and there are 66 third-level categories including litigation documents sample, litigation cost standards, instructions to petitions through visits and hearing announcement. The judicial information disclosure website will publish trial-related information on a real-time basis.

　　Promotion of Establishment of Disclosure Platforms on New Media

　　People's courts at all levels have relied on internet and new media technologies to greatly strengthen the crossover and integration of the construction of judicial transparency platform and information technology, widely use mobile client, Weibo, WeChat, mobile APP and other forms of new media, and expand the new means for judicial transparency.

　　Since 2013, the SPC has successively opened the official Sina Weibo ID, Tencent Weibo ID and Renmin Weibo ID and launched the National Court Weibo Hall, to fully enter into major Weibo platform in China. By the end of 2016, the total number of fans of the three official Weibo IDs of the SPC has exceeded 33.12 million and these three official Weibo IDs have published over 25,000 messages and received comments of 3.45 million. In the Sina Administrative Affairs Weibo Report 2014 published by the Public Opinions Monitoring Office of People's Daily, @最高人民法院 ranked in Top 10 Administrative Affairs and Institutional Weibo IDs and Top 10 Department and Ministry Weibo IDs, and ranked No.1 among the Top 10 Best Application Awards for Administrative Affairs Weibo IDs in China and the Top 10 Judicial Weibo IDs. On December 14, 2014, the new media of the Supreme People’s Court ranked 3rd in the List of Administrative Affairs New Media with Comprehensive Influence in China in 2014. "National Court Weibo Hall" has become the first official Weibo cluster at national level serving Weibo halls of institutions at provincial level (31 provincial institutions), and the rudiment of Weibo pattern of "national team + local team" has been formed. By the end of 2016, there are 3,547 courts in China that have opened official Weibo accounts.

　　The SPC's official WeChat ID was launched officially in November, 2013, and completely changed and updated in April, 2014 to integrate all kinds of media resources of the court system, so as to provide services to users such as judicial information, judicial transparency and communication of public opinion and become a comprehensive open and service-oriented platform. By the end of 2016, there are 1,120 graphic messages published and 414,000 subscribers. The official WeChat ID of the SPC has shortlisted the "Top 10 Administrative Affairs WeChat ID in China of the Year 2014".

　　The SPC joint the Sohu News Mobile Client-end platform on December 26, 2013, and thereafter opened client-end accounts on the platforms of Sohu, People's Daily, Toutiao, Netease, Yidianzixun and Qiehao. As of the end of 2016, the six client-end accounts have published over 31,000 pieces of information of various types and own over 20.8 million subscribers.

　　On February 27, 2015, the APP named "China Court Mobile TV" officially launched for operation, and has opened such columns as legal news, hotly-debated issue in rule of law, and live broadcasting of court trial, and has such functions as What's Hot, Live Broadcasting Appointment and On-demand Video. The SPC has uploaded 4,886 videos and 676,000 subscribers at the present, and recorded 3,616,700 hits in the highest.

　　Promotion of the Diversified Judicial Interactive Communication

　　People's courts at all levels have actively responded to the concerns and expectations of people, further smoothed the channels for communication with public opinions, made innovations on interactive communication method, and built up the good interactive communication mechanism between the courts and the people by means of Court Open Day, opening message leaving column and creating exclusive communication platform.

　　The SPC regularly holds thematic and diversified Campaigns of Public Open Day to invite NPC members, CPPCC members, grassroots and minors to pay a visit to the SPC to directly experience the charisma of the highest trial authority and the judicial achievements in China. The new China Courts Museum has been built up to inherit the Chinese judicial culture and exhibit our construction achievements in rule of law. On May 28, 2015, the SPC's First Circuit Court held the "Walk in to Experience the Rule of Law" Open Day Event to invite some NPC members, CPPCC members, lawyer representatives, businessmen representatives, resident representatives and college student representatives to walk in the circuit court to observe the court trial and the reception work for petitions through visits, which has fully displayed the reform achievements in the SPC’s establishment of the circuit court. On December 4, 2015, the SPC held the "12·4" Open Day Theme Event ("I Speak for Rule of Law") to have "Top Ten Press Spokesmen" of courts in China make theme speech and interactive communication with news media, so as to promote all walks of life to build up the constitution awareness, maintain the authority of the Constitution and deepen their recognition of the comprehensive promotion of rule of law. On May 28, 2014, the SPC has held the Campaign of Public Open Day for minors and the launching ceremony of the book Law on Your Side— Legal Protection for Minors, and Mr. Zhou Qiang, chief justice of the SPC has answered questions raised by representatives invited for visit. At early July 2014, the people's courts at all levels in China have carried out the special publicity and popularization campaign "Law on Your Side—Laws into School", and nearly 500 courts in 25 provinces and cities all around China have participated in this campaign. By jointly creating the Rule of Law Program with China Education Television, presiding judges have entered into the studio to interpret laws by case, promote the concept of rule of law and disseminate the spirit of rule of law. On August 27, 2014, the SPC launched the first themed open event facing foreign embassies and envoys in China, and 25 diplomatic envoys from 16 embassies in China visited the daily work of the SPC and attended and observed the court trial process. By the China-ASEAN Justice Forum, the BRICS Justice Forum and Sub-forum of Environmental Judicial Protection at Boao Forum for Asia 2015, the Conference of Presidents of Supreme Courts of China and Central and Eastern European Countries, and the Sino-British Justice Roundtable, we have showed our construction achievements in rule of law to the world and spread the voice of China in rule of law.

　　In order to comprehensively solicit opinions on judicial work from the people, understand the public's judicial demands and expand the judicial democracy, the SPC has successively opened the email for communication with public opinions, the column of "Message to Chief Justice", and contact and communication platform for NPC members and CPPCC members to widely solicit opinions and suggestions and timely make response. At the end of 2016, the SPC has received 24,000 opinions and suggestions from NPC members and CPPCC members, and the "Message to Chief Justice" Column has received 72,000 messages which are all responded timely. The SPC has opened a special column for solicitation of opinions on its official website to publish the judicial interpretations, guiding opinions and draft for comments concerning reform programs which are proposed to issue by the SPC, to provide valid channels for the public to participate in the judiciary and the supervision of judiciary.

　　Local people's courts at all levels have carried out informative and diversified legal publicity activities, in combination with local actuality. Since 2014, courts in Anhui have carried out the "Double 'Thousand' and Three 'Hundred'" Event, under which the courts in Anhui will in each year have approximately one thousand NPC members or CPPCC members attend and observe court trial, conduct about one thousand live broadcasting of court trials, hold hundreds of press conferences and hundreds of "Court Open Day" events. By April of 2016, they have organized 1,584 court open day events and listened to the comments on the courts from ten thousand provincial, municipal, and county representatives. Courts in Chongqing have carried out the "Judge in Community" theme event, and the People's Court in Yubei District, Chongqing has arranged 162 judge working groups to seamlessly connect with 162 communities in the district. The live broadcasting of court trials have joined the class, and college students may observe the live broadcasting of the court trial by remote video, and this has closed the distance with the general public and facilities the judicial disclosure and transparency.

　　All local courts have proactively and continuously increased the communication with the public, built up the good image of courts and judges and improve the judicial transparency and creditability by court mailbox, judicial interaction platform, aboveboard judiciary index assessment and otherwise. Chongqing High People's Court has published the emails of presidents of courts at three levels to the society, and in 2015, the president email of courts in Chongqing have handled 3,911 emails in total. Courts in Fujian have organized the implementation of the "Great Judicial Visit" Event, implemented "Judiciary in Community", and circulated the work situation of courts to all walks of life by means of interactive communication, interpreting laws by cases, legal consulting and legal publicity. Zhejiang High People's Court has cooperated with Zhejiang University to develop and formulate the judicial indicators evaluation system, and has entrusted the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as an independent third party to carry out dynamic monitoring and evaluation of the judicial transparency work since 2013, which has objectively and fully revealed the effects and problems in judicial transparency by courts and facilitated courts to correct any imperfectness and further promote the judicial transparency. Jilin High People's Court has formulated the Judiciary Index Assessment System for Court in Jilin Province to quantify the transparency standards and carry out valid assessment and evaluation of the judicial transparency work of the whole province. This measure has objectively reflected the reflections and comments of the general public on judicial transparency and promoted the on-going improvement of the judicial transparency work.

Conclusion

　　In recent years, as the people's courts keep increasing their input and efforts in judicial transparency, judicial transparency has obtained great progress from its forms to its substance and created a new breakthrough both in judicial transparency and in judicial fairness, especially in terms of promoting judicial transparency by information-based approaches. It is deeply rooted in people’s mind that disclosure can bring about justice, anti-corruption and creditability. An open, dynamic, transparent, convenient and fair judicial mechanism was proposed as a concept and target on the 4th Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party, and has become the direction of the judicial transparency work of people's courts in the new era, and put forward higher requirements for people's courts in terms of judicial transparency. Judicial transparency is always on the way and never ends. In the near future, the Supreme People’s Court will continue to thoroughly deepen judicial transparency and rely on information technologies to promote such transparency with respect to case registration, court trial, enforcement, hearing, documents and instruments and administrative affairs concerning the court, push forward the full disclosure of judicial basis, process, procedures, results and effective legal documents and instruments, propel the integration, technical innovation, in-depth application and overall advancement of the judicial transparency platforms, accelerate the standardization, institutionalization and informization, and constantly improve the disclosure mechanism, expand disclosure channels, innovate disclosure approaches and construct an open, dynamic, transparent, convenient and fair judicial transparency, so as to make greater contribution to the comprehensive promotion of the rule of law and the construction of a socialist country under the rule of law.