Judicial Transparency as Judicial Centralization: Mass Publicity of Court Decisions in China

Abstract

The recent mass publicity of court decisions in China, this article argues, is part of the larger trend of the Chinese judiciary becoming increasingly centralized. The transparency reform enables the Supreme People's Court to directly control the information reporting process within the judicial hierarchy and rein in local courts through public scrutiny, thereby functioning as a solution to the agency problem between the central and the local governments. Interestingly, evidence shows that local courts responded strategically, rendering disclosure of decisions far from the level that the central government requires. In the meantime, the central government has dispatched increasing amounts of judicial cadres to local courts, and such provincial judicial cadres are associated with more than a 10% higher disclosure rate of judicial decisions, suggesting that centralization of personnel is used as a tool to effectively implement the SPC's centralized policy. The transparency reform, coinciding with reforms in many other domains, embodies an important shift toward a more centralized judicial sector in China.

Does the publication of judgments on the Internet change the outcome of administrative litigation cases? A DID-model-based analysis

“…With the widespread use of mediation in administrative litigation in recent years, and with the Supreme Court's reinforcement of the rules related to the withdrawal of a plaintiff's case after the defendant has changed the administrative action being sued, it seems that the courts are reluctant or even refuse to issue formal judgments in administrative litigation cases (Huang, 2013). The courts avoid a trial and prefer to use other informal means to hear cases, leading to the legality of the contentious administrative actions associated with the case not having been effectively answered (Chen, 2024). It is thus difficult for the judiciary to maximize its function of restraining administration.…”

Action of Chinese Courts With the Anti-Torture Legal Obligation Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture: A Socio-Legal Narrative Critique Analysis of Application of Law and Legal Reasoning

“…53 Ibid, note 40. See also "中国裁判文书网文书总量突破一亿份司法公开规范司法行为促进司法公正 "(The total number of documents on the China Judgment Online exceeded 100 million judicial openness to available (Ahl & Sprick, 2017), and whether their court judgements are uploaded in a prompt and timely manner has become one of the performance evaluation indicators for judges (Chen et al, 2021). However, the highly selective nature of the cases disclosed in the public database has also been criticized (Lo, 2016), especially in cases involving sensitive areas (Xu, 2016).…”