真相集中营

The Economist-Why Chinas government is hushing up court rulings China

January 17, 2024   5 min   1062 words

这篇报道揭示了中国法院逐渐收紧透明度的趋势,这与近年来中国社会其他领域的不透明化相呼应。报道中提到,中国法院逐渐减缓了上传裁决结果的速度,并有报道称一些法官被告知无需再上传案例。这一透明度下降的变化对于维权律师和活动人士来说影响深远,他们过去依赖裁决数据库来支持他们的案件。文章还指出,以前在该数据库中可以找到的一些引起关注的案例,如反对政府滥用“寻衅滋事罪”的案例,如今已经消失。 透明度虽不能保证司法公正,但它提供了对司法体系的独立监督,有助于改善司法质量。然而,中国政府似乎对此产生了疲劳感,开始限制公众对司法系统的了解。这种不透明化的趋势不仅在司法领域,还在其他领域,如学术数据库和经济数据公布中体现出来。 文章指出,这种透明度下降可能导致更多的腐败,但中共可能会选择在内部采取反腐措施,而非公开透明的方式。最后,文章引用专业人士的观点,认为透明度的降低可能适得其反,减少了公众对法治的信任。这篇报道透过对中国司法系统变化的分析,揭示了中国社会透明度不断减弱的趋势,值得关注和担忧。

OVER THE past three decades China’s legal system has been gradually improving, albeit from a low base. The Communist Party still dominates the system: Xi Jinping, China’s leader, denounces judicial independence as a dangerous foreign idea. Suspected criminals who end up in court are found guilty 99% of the time. But analysts reckon the quality of judges on the civil and commercial side has got better and corruption has decreased. The World Bank has a rule-of-law measure that uses indicators like property rights and judicial independence. In 2006 China was in the bottom third of countries. By 2022 it was in the top half.

Better pay for judges and harsher punishments for misconduct have helped. But one crucial change has been more transparency. A decade ago China’s courts were ordered to upload all but the most sensitive of their rulings to a database called China Judgments Online, which was open to anyone. The platform grew to contain over 140m decisions. This unprecedented window into the system was a boon for civil-society groups, which could reference cases in their campaigns to, say, protect the environment or defend women’s rights.

But the era of transparency seems to be ending. In December the supreme court admitted that the pace at which rulings were uploaded to China Judgments Online had fallen. Some judges have reportedly been told that they no longer need to upload cases at all. “Judicial transparency doesn’t mean we need to post all judicial information on the internet,” said the court. It suggested that China Judgments Online raised privacy and security concerns. An alternative database will be launched this year, but will be accessible only to court officials and police.

Transparency does not guarantee fairness in a justice system. In 1980 China televised the trial of Mao Zedong’s widow, Jiang Qing, who stood accused of persecuting thousands of people during the Cultural Revolution. Prosecutors assembled evidence and called witnesses. The public, wrote one of the judges, could “see for themselves what was meant by the rule of law”. But the verdict was never in doubt. The Communist Party needed a scapegoat for the chaos of Mao’s rule. Jiang received a death sentence, later commuted to life imprisonment.

But the increased visibility of China’s court system has improved the quality of justice. It has also caused embarrassment. Similar offences often yield differing rulings. Some decisions, such as judges denying the victims of human-trafficking a divorce from their buyers, have drawn attention for being cruel and absurd. A more accountable government might acknowledge such problems and promise to do better. The Chinese government, though, seems to have tired of providing fodder for activists by putting its failings on display.

Nothing to see here

That this experiment in transparency is ending comes as little surprise. China has been growing more opaque in other ways, too. Last year foreigners lost access to parts of a database called China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), which contains around 95% of Chinese academic articles and a host of other documents. The firm that runs CNKI cited cybersecurity rules. In August the government stopped releasing the unemployment rate for city-dwellers aged 16 to 24 after it rose to a record 21.3%. Later in the year analysts at banks were warned against publishing bearish views on the economy.

The gutting of China Judgments Online will have as big an impact as any of these moves. Lawyers used the database to find precedents that could strengthen their arguments. Those who specialise in helping citizens sue government agencies—a tricky task at the best of times—complain that almost all such cases have vanished from the database. With a bit of persuasion, court officials might provide relevant rulings. But that could involve paying backhanders. An informal market for judgments that are no longer publicly available has reportedly sprung up on social media. Lawyers warn that less public scrutiny of decisions could also lead to more corruption.

Activists at home and abroad may be most affected by the changes. They had used the database in a variety of ways, such as exposing how the government uses vague offences like “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” to criminalise dissent. Many such cases have been removed. So have others that expose the party’s brutality, such as those resulting in a death sentence (China does not reveal how many people it executes). Cases involving sensitive terms, such as “freedom of speech”, have also disappeared.

The government’s efforts to cover up scandals extends to the database. In 2022 a woman was found chained by the neck in a freezing outhouse in Jiangsu province, provoking public outrage. After issuing a series of contradictory statements, officials admitted that she had been sold into marriage. Embarrassed, the government limited access to the woman’s village and censors deleted news reports about her plight. Many cases related to human-trafficking appear to have been removed from China Judgments Online, too.

Cases involving wildlife-trafficking have gone missing from the database. With many people believing that the covid-19 virus jumped from animals to humans at a market in Wuhan, that is perhaps no surprise. Other deletions are more puzzling. Cases to do with “stealing or insulting a corpse” can no longer be found. Researchers believe the government is deleting anything at all that could be embarrassing.

If the decline in transparency leads to more corruption, the party will not fight it in the open. It has a parallel system for dealing with graft, managed by the Central Committee for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). Since assuming power in 2012 Mr Xi has increased the CCDI’s resources and authority. In 2023 alone it punished over 400,000 officials. Only a tiny fraction of such cases are ever revealed to the public.

One of Mr Xi’s favourite slogans is yifa zhiguo, or “governing the country according to law”. He is not referring to the rule of law in the Western sense. Rather, he wants the party’s rule to become more professional and predictable. That, he hopes, will give it more legitimacy.

But lawyers believe that the decline in transparency will have the opposite effect. Some, such as Han Xu of Sichuan University, argue that by reducing the public’s access to cases the supreme court is itself breaking laws that require courts to disclose their judgments. With the court setting such a bad example, he asks, “How can we cultivate people’s belief in the rule of law?”