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A new Chinese legal database is stoking fears among legal experts about declining data transparency against the backdrop of a wider government clampdown on access to information under President Xi Jinping.
China’s Supreme People’s Court on Monday launched the National Court Judgements Database, a record of legal judgments that the government says will “be open to experts, scholars [and] lawyers”.
But the country’s top court has not clarified the extent to which the database’s case filings will be available to the public, and Caixin, a local business outlet, has reported that it will be an internal system for court personnel.
Its introduction has also raised concerns about the future of an existing archive, China Judgements Online. Since 2013, China Judgments Online has been a crucial source of information for domestic and international lawyers, analysts and businesses. But over the past years, the number of documents it has published has sharply declined, its records show.
Since the beginning of Xi’s unprecedented third term in power in late 2022, Chinese authorities have increasingly restricted public access to information, from economic indicators to regulatory decision-making, creating further challenges for foreign policymakers, analysts and businesses to assess the country’s direction as it emerges from pandemic isolation.
Authorities have passed anti-espionage and data security laws to tighten cross-border controls of sensitive trade and economic information that have left companies struggling to comply. China in June also stopped reporting youth unemployment, which had hit record levels amid a flagging economic recovery from the pandemic.
Chinese officials have in the past lauded China Judgements Online as the largest archive of its kind in the world, with more than 140mn records. But newly published court documents sank to their lowest level in a decade last year, with no more than 10mn additions.
Only 30 per cent of judgments — which span criminal, civil and administrative cases as well as government compensation and enforcement actions — were made public in 2022, compared with more than 70 per cent a few years earlier.
Reduced activity on China Judgements Online, combined with limited reassurances about the new judicial database and its function, has sparked concern among lawyers and legal analysts.
“This should be considered a major reform, a major change, but the rationale for the reform is a black box,” said one expert on Chinese law who asked to remain anonymous.
“Practising lawyers use [the existing database] for many, many reasons”, including deciding which court to litigate in and assessing the chances of success of particular legal arguments, the person added.
A leaked state media circular regarding the new database in December sparked widespread social media scrutiny. Last month, state broadcaster CCTV published a Q&A with an unnamed official that aimed to address transparency concerns but noted the Supreme People’s Court in July 2021 introduced “targeted rectification measures” for China Judgements Online, citing security concerns, that resulted in a reduction in available documents.
International businesses also heavily rely on China Judgements Online to conduct due diligence in China as part of their business operations or new investment decisions.
“I’m not sure they would leave the current information up there for free, it doesn’t seem to be consistent with what they’re doing,” said one person involved in due diligence who also declined to be named. “There seems to be a genuine pivot towards having a less open judicial system.”
The Supreme People’s Court of China did not respond to a request for comment.
Additional reporting by Cheng Leng in Hong Kong and Wenjie Ding in Beijing
