China’s apex court launches website to track cases in 20 provinces

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The Supreme People's Court in Beijing.
The Supreme People’s Court in Beijing.

(TibetanReview.net, Nov15, 2014) – China said Nov 13 that in an effort to boost judicial transparency, its Supreme People’s Court (SPC) had officially launched that day a website for parties to track the progress of their court cases. The website is also said to provide to the general public access to basic information on courts and their court officials, as well as manuals on litigation and judicial procedures.

Using their ID numbers, parties and lawyers can check the status of a case handled by the SPC or local courts in 20 provincial-level regions, including Beijing, as well as electronic documents and in-court video recordings at www.court.gov.cn/zgsplcxxgkw, China’s official Xinhua news agency Nov 13 quoted the SPC as saying in a statement. China has 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 centrally administered municipalities and 2 special administrative regions, and it was not clear whether Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan-inhabited provinces were included in it.

However, the report did further cite the statement as saying the SPC was working to have cases managed by all courts nationwide available on the site in the future.

But the provision of this access is not without an exception. The report cited the SPC statement as saying, “All case information fit for the public is available at the site, while some is unfit for online disclosure due to its special nature and may only be obtained via strict official procedures.” Information related to review of death penalty cases was cited as an example of such exception.

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