The Supreme People's Court Provisions on People's Courts Release of Judgments on the Internet

 【Issuing Body】Supreme People's Court
 【Issuance Number】Legal Interpretation (2016) No. 19
 【Date of Issue】2016-08-29
 【Effective Date】2016-10-01
 【Expiration Date】
 【Document Type】Judicial Interpretation
 【Document Source】Supreme People's Court 

The Supreme People's Court Provisions on People's Courts Release of Judgments on the Internet

Legal Interpretation (2016) No. 19

"The Supreme People's Court Provisions on People's Courts' Release of Judgments on the Internet" was passed by the 1689th meeting of the Adjudication Committee of the Supreme People's Court on July 25, 2016, and take effect on October 1, 2016.

The follow Provisions are formulated in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC, the Civil Procedure Law of the PRC, the Administrative Litigation Law of the the PRC and relevant provisions, taken together with the actual work conditions in the people's courts, so as to implement the principle of disclosing judgments, to standardize efforts of the people's courts to release judgments online, to advance judicial fairness, and to increase judicial credibility.

Article 1: People's Courts' release of judgment documents on the internet shall be in accordance with law, complete, prompt, and standardized.

Article 2: China Judgments Online is the uniform platform for the nation's courts' publication of judgment documents. All levels of people's court are to set up links to China Judgments Online on their government affairs websites and judicial transparency platforms.

Article 3: The following judgment documents made by the people's courts shall be released on the internet:

(1) Criminal, civil, and administrative judgments;

(2) Criminal, civil, administrative, and enforcement rulings;

(3) Payment orders;

(4) Notices rejecting appeal petitions in criminal, civil, administrative, and enforcement cases;

(5) State compensation decisions;

(6) Compulsory medical treatment decisions or decisions denying compulsory medical treatment applications;

(7) Decisions enforcing or modifying criminal punishment;

(8) Decisions on detention or fines made against acts that obstruct litigation or enforcement, decisions of early release from custody, or reconsideration decisions made in response to application for reconsideration of detentions, fines, or other decisions on sanctions;

(9) Administrative mediation documents, civil public interest litigation mediation documents;

(10) Other judgment documents which have the effect of suspending or terminating litigation procedures, or which affect the parties' substantive rights and interest or have a major impact on the parties' procedural rights and interest.

Article 4: Where a judgment document made by a people's court has any of the following circumstances, it must not be released on the internet:

(1) It involves state secrets;

(2) crimes by minors;

(3) Where the case was closed by way of mediation or by affirming the authority of a people's mediation agreement, except where there is a need to release it so as to protect national interests, the societal public interest, or others' lawful rights and interests;

(4) divorce litigation or those that involve the rearing or custody of minor children;

(5) Other situations that a people's court finds inappropriate to release it on the internet.

Article 5: People's Courts shall inform the parties of the scope of judgment documents to be released on the internet in case acceptance notices and response notices, and use means such as government affairs websites, electronic touch screens, and litigation guides to inform the public of the regulations related to the people's courts' release of judgment documents on the internet.

Article 6: For judgment documents not released on the internet, the case number, the court that heard the case, the date of judgment and the reasons of not releasing it shall be made public, except where releasing the aforementioned information might reveal state secrets.

Article 7: Judgment documents that have taken legal effect shall be released on the internet within seven business days of taking effect. First-instance verdicts or rulings, against which procuratorial protests or appeals have been initiated in accordance with law, shall be released on the internet seven business days after the second-instance rulings take effect.

Article 8: When releasing judgment documents on the internet, people's courts shall redact the names of the following personnel:

(1) parties and their legally-designated representatives in marriage and family cases, or inheritance disputes;

(2) Victims and their legally-designated representatives, incidental civil action plaintiffs and their legally-designated representatives, witnesses, and expert evaluators in criminal cases;

(3) Minors and their legally-designated representatives;

Article 9: The redaction of names in accordance with Article 8 of these Provisions shall be handled according to the following circumstances:

(1) Retain the surname and replace the given name with "X" [某];

(2) For the names of ethnic minorities, retain the first character and replace the rest with "X" [某];

(3) For the Chinese translations of the names of foreigners and stateless persons, retain the first character and replace the rest with "X" [某]; for the English names of foreigners and stateless persons, retain the first English letter and delete the rest;

Where different names become identical after redaction, differentiate between them by adding Arabic numerals.

Article 10: When releasing judgment documents on the internet, people's courts shall delete the following information:

(1) Natural persons' home addresses, contact information, ID numbers, bank account numbers, health conditions, vehicle license plate numbers, movable or immovable property ownership certificate numbers, and other personal information;

(2) Legal persons' and other organizations' bank account numbers, vehicle license plate numbers, movable or immovable property ownership certificate numbers and other information;

(3) Information involving commercial secrets;

(4) Information involving personal privacy in family disputes, personality rights and interests disputes and other such disputes;

(5) Information involving technical investigation measures;

(6) Other information that people's courts find inappropriate to release.

Where deleting information in accordance with the first paragraph of this Article interferes with correctly understanding the judgment document, use the symbol "×" as a partial substitute.

Article 11: When releasing judgment documents on the internet, people's courts shall retain the following information of parties, legally-designated representative, entrusted representatives, and defenders:

(1) Except where names are redacted in accordance with Article 8 of these Provisions, where the parties and their legally-designated representatives are natural persons, retain their names, dates of birth, sexes, and the districts or counties to which their domiciles belong; where the parties and their legally-designated representatives are legal persons or other organizations, retain their names, domiciles, organization codes, and the names and positions of their legally-designated representatives or principal responsible persons.

(2) Where the entrusted representatives or defenders are lawyers or basic level legal service workers, retain their names, license numbers, and the names of their law firms or basic level legal service organizations; where the entrusted representatives or defenders are other personnel, retain their names, dates of birth, sexes, the districts or counties to which their domiciles belong, and their relationship with the parties.

Article 12: Where judges handling a case feel that a judgment document has circumstances making it inappropriate for release on the internet as provided in article 4(5) of these Provisions, they shall submit a written opinion with reasoning, and ,after review, the department's responsible party will report to the vice-president in charge for validation.

Article 13: The Supreme People's Court oversees and guides the efforts of the nation's courts to release judgment documents on the internet. High and Intermediate people's courts oversee and guide the efforts of courts in their jurisdictional area to release judgment documents on the internet.

The offices for the administration of adjudication or other organs responsible for the administration of adjudication in the people's courts at all levels are responsible for the management work of releasing judgment documents on the internet by the respective courts, and shall carry out the following duties:

(1) Organizing and guiding the release of judgment documents on the internet;

(2) Supervising and evaluating efforts to release judgment documents on the internet;

(3) Coordinating and handling the public's complaints and suggestions on the release of judgment documents;

(4) Coordinating with technical departments to do a good job of technical support and safeguards;

(5) Other related management work.

Article 14: By relying on information technology, people's courts at all levels shall manage the release of judgment documents by including it in the adjudicatory process; reducing the workload of releasing judgement documents, and bringing about the prompt, complete, and convenient release of judgment documents.

Article 15: Except for those technically processed in accordance with the requirements of these Provisions, judgment documents released on the internet shall be consistent with the original judgment documents.

Where people's courts make corrections to typing errors in judgment documents, they shall promptly release the supplemented and corrected ruling on the internet.

Case-handling judges are responsible for the consistency between the judgement documents released on the internet and the original judgement documents and for the normalization of technical processing.

Article 16: Where the judgment documents released on the internet are inconsistent with the original judgment documents or where the technical processing is inappropriate, they shall be retracted promptly and re-released after being corrected.

Where after review, a judgment document that has been released on the internet has the circumstances set forth in Article 4 of these Provisions, it shall be retracted promptly and be handled in accordance with Article 6 of these Provisions.

Article 17: The People's Court Information Technology Service Center is responsible for the operation, maintenance, update, and improvement of the China Judgments Online website, and facilitating all sectors of society's lawful use of the judgment documents released on that website.

Based on the case numbers of a case when different adjudication procedures are applied, the China Judgment Online website is to achieve the interconnectivity of judgment documents.

Article 18: These Provisions take effect on October 1, 2016. Where judicial interpretations and normative documents previously released by the Supreme People's Court differ from these Provisions, these Provisions control.