The establishment of the spokesperson system by people's courts at various levels signals a positive move towards judicial openness and fairness, says an article in Xiaoxiang Morning News. An excerpt follows:

The news was recently announced that the country's courts at various levels will establish a spokesperson system to publicize information on the emphasis of their work and judicial cases of social concern.

This is a significant effort to push forward the judicial system's approachability for ordinary people, and promote its transparency and justice.

For a long time, the country's judicial departments have paid less attention to communications with society due to the professional nature of judicial activities. As a result, there has had some distance between the public and the judicial system.

The development of judicial civilization and political democracy has demanded that the distance be narrowed. The people's right for information sharing has also made it necessary to push for judicial openness. The setting up of the spokesperson system aimed at publishing related information is expected to help strengthen links between courts and the public and media. It will also help the public acquire timely and accurate authoritative judicial information and trends and eliminate their misunderstandings.

A regular spokesperson system will also help the public and media play a supervisory role and promote information transparency and judicial fairness.

The publishing of judicial cases-related information at a proper time is expected to help the public learn the progress of some cases. Malpractice or corruption among judicial workers is also expected to be reduced by the process.

What the country should do now is to create a long-term effective judicial information disclosure mechanism.

However, the public and the media should be cautious while playing their supervisory roles, given the independent nature of judicial affairs.

(China Daily January 12, 2006)