Public Opinion And Judicial Justice

The complicated relationship between the supervision of public opinion from the media and mass to the judicial judgment, and the judge independent judgment, has been learned by the scholars all the time. The main reason is how to balance the two basic values between the freedom expression of the public opinion and judicial independence, in present society of rule by law. On one hand, the freedom of speech of the public opinion is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution, so the report of the public opinion is the main insurance to satisfy the public right to know. On the other hand, judicial independence is an important factor to ensure the fair justice in present society of rule by law. How to coordinate the conflict between them is the subject to be settled in this text. According to the situation of our country, in the author's opinion, the two values, supervision by public opinion to judiciary and keeping judicial independence, are not two conflicting values, because the final purposes of them are both to guarantee the justice. The purpose that public opinion supervises the judicial trial is to guarantee the just settlement of the cases, and judicial independence is also to leaving the judge a piece of independent space to guarantee the justice. Thus, justice is the best measurement to balance the two values. According to the present statement of judiciary of our country, the supervision by public opinion is an essential means to ensure the judicial justice, just because supervision by the public opinion makes a lot of cases solved fairly. We should pay close attention to the public opinion to guarantee the report of the public opinion is free and true. They are the thread of this paper that how to guarantee the report of public opinion true and free by law and making the public opinion full play with the supervision function. Those two problems will be analyzed from the following four parts.First of all, the concept of"public opinion"is discussed. After clarifying the different meanings of"public opinion"in different fields, the concept of"public opinion"used in this text is pointed out. Based on that, the right attribute of the public opinion is illustrated, which is the basic right protected by the Constitution, so excepting the law there are no other means to interfere the public opinion. Meanwhile, the author briefly summarizes the positive role of public opinion and the statement of public opinion organizations in our country.In the second part, the author briefly introduces the relationship between public opinion and judiciary. Firstly, the author illuminates the promotion function of public opinion to the judicial justice, which guarantees the openness of trail procedure and supervises the cases have been sentenced. The two functions of public opinion, ensuring the judicial trial goes on smoothly and open, and preventing the corrupt problem once the judges operate the cases secretly, which are favorable to the realization of judicial justice. Secondly, because the public opinion gets involved in the judiciary and supervises the judiciary, the problems of public opinion and judicial independence discussed warmly by scholars at present has been drawn. The author analyzes the essence of judicial independence, and points out that the main factor of interfering judicial independence is the executive power, but not the public opinion. The supervision by public opinion is one of the most important means to ensure the judicial justice. At present, the questions that should be considered are the independence and unreal situation of public opinion, how to take legal measures to ensure the public opinion free and real, and how to give full play with the functions of supervising judicial trial procedure and promoting the judicial justice.In part three, the author analyzes the problems of the public opinion existed in our country. To sum up, these questions are mainly shown from the following two respects. First of all, there is serious independent problem of the public opinion in our country. The public opinion of our country is the mouthpiece all the time, and it can not get rid of the control from the government, so lots of cases can not be reported or not be reported in time. That is to say, the public opinion loses its characteristics, comprehensive and timely. Besides that, people's willing can not be expressed smoothly through the public opinion. In China, the people are the masters, but how do they exercise the power to manage the country and how to express their own opinions? In China, according to the statement of the public opinion, the public opinion organization still have to bear all sorts of restrictions, which is more difficult for the public to express their own opinions. Secondly, the authenticity of the public opinion is doubtful. Because of the administration interference, commercial interest and the public opinion itself, the expressions from public opinion are not so credible, and some ones even mislead the public. Thus, how to ensure the public opinion truth is the anther problem to be answered by legal means.In the fourth part, the problems pointed out in the previous part, which faced by the public opinion in our country, will be analyzed and answered correspondingly in this section. By referring to the judicial systems of such countries as Great Britain and America and so on, the judicial system of our country should be built. The author promotes three basic principals of the public opinion supervision. Firstly, it is the independence and freedom principal of the public opinion. To insure the independence and freedom of the public opinion is the precondition of ensuring the public opinion supervision making function. If it is not in the independence and freedom environment, the supervision function can not be made and the judicial justice can not be promoted either. To guarantee the independence and freedom of the public opinion, the most important thing is to ensure that the public opinion is independent from the administrative organization and get rid of the spokesman's destiny for the government. The establishment of the public opinion organization should adopt the commercial mode, which can guarantee the fair competition between the public opinion organizations. The freedom of interview and report for the public opinion officers, especially the journalists, should be guaranteed through the legislation. In order to ensure the people's willing expressed smoothly, the author suggest to use the advantages of internet, setting up the network BBS. Secondly, it is the authenticity principal. The author introduces some rules created by Great Britain and America and so on, which limit the freedom expression. To take those as an example, the author proposes that in our country some corresponding legal measurements should be taken to punish the unreal public opinion speech. The Third principal is that the public opinion can not interfere in the judicial. The involvement from the public opinion to judicial will influence the judgments more or less, so by referring to the Contempt of Court Law and anther laws of the Great Britain and America and so on, the author subjects that when the public opinion organizations, such as the news and the paper public center, should report the judicial cases seriously, which means that public opinion can only report the fact of cases before the it is sentenced, and the supervision after that should be emphasized on the procedure of the cases only. Thus, the independence right of the law-officer can be ensured. The author also proposes that in China some relevant rules should be stipulated in Procedure Law in order to avoiding the interruption from the public opinion to the judge in the course of court's trial.Therefore, in the author's opinion, under the guarantee and restriction of law, if the public opinion can give full play to its supervising function, it can guarantee the judicial justice effectively. It is practical to learn the problems between the public opinion and judicial justice. Dealing well with the public opinion problems existed in our country, can promote the judicial justice and ensure the public rights and interests extremely. Meanwhile, the realization of the justice goal will promote people's trust to the law, which makes the public believe in law further, and it is also favorable to realize the goal that is administering our country according to law.