White Paper: Human Rights, "Consultative Democracy" and Judicial Rights

“Right to Impartial Trial”

The white paper addressed the issue first by saying that all level of China’s judicial bodies adopted reform, increased openness, and continued their duties in "preventing, identifying and redressing cases involving unjust, false and wrongful charges throughout all criminal procedures from investigation to prosecution to trials." According to the paper, 1.184 million people were convicted in 2014, and the report went on to list several figures for other various outcomes to cases.

The "Several Opinions on Advancing the Establishment of the Three Major Platforms of Judicial Openness", implemented by the Supreme People’s Court, was also discussed as "litigants can inquire about the progress of their cases, and a judgment disclosure platform has been created" and the "Publicizing of Written Judgments of the People's Courts on the Internet" as "a total of 6.294 million judgments were publicized on the Internet." The paper also mentioned that China also "completed the construction of a nationwide system of case information disclosure by procuratorial bodies, putting into operation the four platforms of case procedural information inquiry, legal documentation disclosure, information disclosure of major cases, and application by appointment for defense and representation."

Improvements made to systems obtaining valid evidence, including measures in which illegal evidence could be identified and refused, were expanded upon in the white paper. Several provinces will also act as "pilot areas to implement four judicial reform measures, namely, improving the categorized management of judicial personnel, improving the judicial accountability system, improving the career security of judicial personnel, and implementing the integrated management of personnel, finance and property in the people's courts and procuratorates below the provincial level." Improvements as a result of this will most certainly increase efficiency and confidence in judicial systems.

The paper also covered the amending of "the Administrative Litigation Law, further improving the systems covering every aspect of administrative litigation, from bringing a case to court, the trial of the case, to making of the judgment and enforcement, so as to further protect the lawful rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations." China is also "making efforts to build a joint mechanism for state compensation to safeguard the lawful rights and interests of compensation applicants."

On matters concerning intellectual property rights, various internal system improvements have been made and concluded intellectual property cases of first instance increased 10% and the prosecution of persons for infringement of trademarks, patents, copyrights or business secrets increased 7.1%.