Top Court’s Spokesman Opens Blog
04/24/2009 Source: China Daily
China’s prolific Internet users, hell bent on exposing corruption in government functioning, have another reason to smile.
Their consistency in blowing the whistle on corrupt officials has even encouraged the spokesman of the country’s top court to open his own blog, with the sole intention of “connecting with the public”.
“Anyone and everyone is welcome to leave messages on my blog. I will try hard to be a trustworthy and respectable spokesman,” read the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) spokesman Sun Jungong’s web page, http://sunjungong.home.news.cn/blog, which popped up on the Internet on Tuesday.
Sun’s move to open his blog comes close on the heels of a notice issued by the top court last week, urging judicial officers at all levels to “better communicate” with the general public.
“The rapid growth of the Internet has offered us a faster and broader way to hear from and respond to the people,” Sun said during an online interview yesterday, which he immediately made public on his blog.
Sun wrote that the traditional way to communicate with the country’s people, which meant occasional visits to their homes and listening to their grievances or complaints, “obviously cannot reflect the true picture”.
He said more than 300 courts across the country had recently opened and made public their mail boxes on www.chinacourt.org after the SPC issued the notice last Tuesday.
“Direct communication between court officials and the public will help the people better understand our work,” Sun said. “And we must adhere to the principle that we tell them no lies.”
Chinese courts are facing an increasing pressure to ensure fair and efficient trials and fight corruption, while the financial crisis has only posed new challenges for them, Sun said.
“We should be frank with the media and facilitate their interviews,” Sun said.
The netizens, who have been responsible for pushing many corrupt officials off their chairs in the past few months, flocked to Sun’s blog address to hear their new friend in the judiciary. By yesterday, Sun’s page had seen more than 2,000 visitors and about 100 comments, most of them positive.
A few took the opportunity to give their opinions on allegedly unfair verdicts, while some offered suggestions to the ongoing judicial reform.
Zhou Ze, a law professor at the China Youth University for Political Sciences, said Sun’s blog and recent measures taken by the top court are obviously a step forward in ensuring a fair and transparent judicial system.
