The opening ceremony of the conference was chaired by Professor Shi Xinzhong, Director of the Research Center for Credit Legislation and Credit Assessment at Capital Normal University and President of the Beijing Credit Society. Wang Dagang, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Capital Normal University, delivered a welcoming address on behalf of the university. Leaders and experts—including Cheng Tianquan, Director of the Academic Committee of the Beijing Credit Society and former Party Secretary of Renmin University of China—also delivered speeches one after another.

During the special keynote session of the main forum, Attorney Cheng Xiaolu delivered a speech titled “The Key to Enhancing Public Trust in the Judiciary Lies in Deepening Judicial Transparency.” Drawing on his twenty years of practical experience in the criminal justice system, he shared professional insights on judicial transparency and the building of public trust in the judiciary.

Attorney Cheng Xiaolu clearly and directly emphasized the importance of judicial openness as a constitutional principle. She pointed out, “Openness is the cornerstone of public trust,” and noted that making fairness and justice visibly accessible is key to enhancing the public’s confidence in and acceptance of the judicial system. Subsequently, she... The system thoroughly analyzes three prominent issues currently existing in the practice of judicial openness:

First, court hearings tend to be formalistic in their public nature and are actually subject to numerous restrictions. Attorney Cheng pointed out that in some cases attracting high public attention, courts often resort to excuses such as “limited venue capacity” and “security requirements” to indirectly restrict public access to courtroom proceedings. Moreover, the previously explored practice of live-streaming court trials has largely come to a standstill. These practices have sparked public doubts about the fairness of the judicial system.

Second, judicial documents are insufficiently disclosed and lack adequate reasoning. She pointed out that in practice, there is a phenomenon of “selective online access.” The court documents provide overly brief summaries of evidence, often failing to explicitly list or evaluate the evidence submitted by the defense. Moreover, these documents lack targeted responses to the key issues at stake in the case. All of these factors undermine the explanatory and reasoning functions of the court documents.

Third, the degree of transparency in judicial procedures and related rules is insufficient. Attorney Cheng pointed out that many important internal regulations and operational practices remain undisclosed, such as the Ministry of Public Security’s regulations on jurisdiction over inter-provincial cases involving enterprises, as well as the recently issued new guidelines jointly released by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security regarding residential surveillance, internal audit systems, and procedures for requesting and coordinating case-related matters. At the same time, transparency in judicial workflows still needs to be improved, and the rights of parties and lawyers to obtain information and participate fully have yet to be adequately protected.

Regarding the above-mentioned issues, lawyer Cheng Xiaolu conducted an in-depth analysis from three perspectives: conceptual awareness, value conflicts, and institutional shortcomings. She argues that some judicial personnel view judicial transparency as an additional burden and lack a sufficient understanding of the importance of the public’s right to know, right to participate, and right to supervise. Moreover, concerns about data security risks and the protection of personal privacy also to some extent hinder the advancement of judicial transparency. More importantly, judicial transparency lacks strong legal backing and effective redress mechanisms.

Based on these analyses, attorney Cheng Xiaolu proposed: Five specific recommendations: First, establish a review and disclosure mechanism for “internal regulations” to ensure that lawyers can access relevant judicial normative documents. Second, reform the assessment and evaluation system by incorporating “the quality of judicial openness” as an indicator in performance evaluations. Third, expand the dimensions of openness and improve the intelligent association and push mechanism for case databases and ongoing cases. Fourth, establish a tiered protection mechanism to strike a proper balance between openness and privacy protection. Fifth, refine the judicial openness redress mechanism and build a systematic three-tier redress procedure.

At the conclusion of her remarks, Attorney Cheng Xiaolu emphasized that deepening judicial transparency is key to enhancing public trust in the judiciary and serves as an important bridge connecting judicial expertise with public understanding. She suggested actively promoting specialized legislation on judicial transparency or jointly formulating relevant guidelines through coordinated efforts among multiple departments—including the courts, procuratorates, public security agencies, and judicial administration authorities—to comprehensively regulate the principles, scope, procedures, and redress mechanisms for judicial transparency, thereby establishing the fundamental principle of “transparency as the norm, non-disclosure as the exception.”

Attorney Cheng Xiaolu’s remarks were grounded in judicial practice, characterized by clear and well-defined viewpoints and concrete, actionable recommendations. They not only demonstrated the professional expertise of Xinglai Law Firm’s attorneys in the field of research on judicial credibility but also provided valuable perspectives for promoting judicial transparency and enhancing judicial credibility.

The successful holding of this annual conference has provided an important platform for experts and scholars in the field of credit system development to exchange ideas. Attorney Cheng Xiaolu’s active participation and professional remarks exemplify Xinglai Law Firm’s commitment to academic research and its sense of social responsibility in promoting the advancement of the rule of law.

Edited and typeset by: Wang Xin

Review: Management Committee