Millions of court rulings removed from official Chinese database
- Notice on China Judgments Online says it is undergoing a ‘migration’ process that will be completed within days
- Death penalty verdicts are among those that have disappeared, and lawyers have expressed concern over the development
Millions of documents have been removed from China Judgments Online, an official database of rulings run by the Supreme People’s Court, which a public notice said was due to a “migration” process.
The notice posted on the website said that process would be completed within days.
About three months ago, there were more than 117 million judgments from courts across China published on the website. As of Friday, about 11 million had been taken offline.
The judgments that have been removed are mostly criminal cases, and all death penalty verdicts issued by the Supreme People’s Court have been taken down from the site.
Legal professionals have expressed concern about the development, saying it could be a backwards step in the country’s judicial reform efforts to improve transparency.
“I am very concerned about this,” said Wang Fei, a Beijing-based lawyer. “Making the judgments available online was the best reform achievement of the Chinese judiciary in recent years and this is very important for safeguarding justice.”