Chinese courts pledge public, media access to trials, law enforcement

BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) on Wednesday published two regulations, pledging to improve media supervision and public access to the courts' case filing, trial, hearing and law enforcement process, as well as to the verdict documents and court affairs.

The two regulations were aimed to improve judicial democracy, ensure judicial justice, and protect the legitimate rights of the litigants and defendants involved, said Sun Jungong, spokesman of the SPC, during a press conference.

According to the regulations, people involved in lawsuits would have access to all relevant information when filing a lawsuit, and would be kept informed of important information during the law enforcement process.

In open-trial cases, the public and journalists could attend the trials after safety checks.

The courts' verdict documents would be published online if they did not include state secrets, teenage criminal records, personal privacy or other contents inappropriate for publication, while the courts' affairs would also be made public.

Meanwhile, the regulations said journalists might face criminal charges if they disclose state or business secrets, impair national and social interests, distort facts when covering on-going trials, violate the reputation rights of judges or people involved in lawsuits, or conduct any other activities that may harm judicial justice.