China’s top court launches new database of verdicts amid fears over declining transparency
- Supreme People’s Court spokesman says public can now access ‘limited’ archive of more than 3,700 rulings, which will be expanded
- After admitting fewer verdicts were being uploaded to CJO, it said separate sites would be set up for judges and court staff, and the public
China’s top court has launched a new database of verdicts after a controversial move to roll back access to rulings stoked fears about a decline in transparency.
The database – with more than 3,700 rulings currently archived – was introduced to help make verdicts “more standardised, timely, systematic and consistent” and to make it easier to search for cases, the spokesman said.
It will be a supplement to the existing China Judgments Online, or CJO, another website run by the Supreme People’s Court.
CJO – an important resource for lawyers, academics and the public – was thrown into the spotlight in December when the Supreme People’s Court admitted that Chinese courts were uploading fewer verdicts to the website, citing security and privacy reasons.
It said there were 19.2 million court rulings uploaded to CJO in 2020, but that had dropped to 10.4 million in 2022, and just 5.1 million in 2023.
