China's top court announces new library to improve public knowledge of the law

A case library being established by China's top court began soliciting cases from all walks of life on Friday, and will be open to public after its establishment.

Cases deemed to have reference value by the Supreme People's Court will be included in the case library after being reviewed and authorized, according to an announcement issued by the SPC on Friday.

In response to recent reports saying that the library will only be accessible to courts, the SPC clarified that it will be disclosed to everyone, including legal professionals, lawyers and litigants.

While helping residents to learn law knowledge and understand the litigation process, the library will also provide specific, accurate and authorized reference and research materials for legal practitioners, it added.

It emphasized that the establishment of the library is to enhance the accuracy of case search, as well as to unify standards of verdict-making across the country to avoid different rulings in similar cases.

It revealed that the library has collected more than 2,000 cases from courts nationwide over the past three months, "but the number is far from enough to meet public demand," it said, explaining why it announced its intention to enrich the resource of cases.

Welcoming departments, social organizations, law schools, academies, experts, lawyers and residents to provide cases, it added that it will also optimize the search service to make the library play a bigger role in helping people abide by laws.

As to whether the library will be transparent to the public has become a hot issue heatedly discussed on Chinese social media platforms; another website – China Judgements Online – has also been embroiled in controversy for its decrease of verdict upload.

The top court responded on Friday that the website established in 2013 will continue to be used, but its management will be further regulated.

Although more than 100 million rulings have been uploaded on the website to keep the judicial transparency, the searching difficulty and the inconsistent verdicts in similar cases have been frequently complained about among the public.

Meanwhile, some information that could not be disclosed in line with the law, such as those on personal identities, were found to have been made public in the uploaded verdicts, it said, adding that the website security has also been a major issue that needed to be further tackled.

Therefore, the top court has modified the website by improving the ruling disclosure standards since July 2021, resulting in that the number of verdicts uploaded online dropped to 5.11 million this year from 19.2 million in 2020.

The figure is declining, "but courts have never been asked not to upload rulings online," it said.

In response to whether the website will be closed if the case library is completely established, it said: "the two platforms will complement each other; we will not replace the website with the library."

"In short, Chinese courts' determination and effort to keep judicial transparency and offer high-quality legal services will never change," it added.