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The High Court of Henan province in central China released its Judicial Etiquette and Code of Conduct last month, which will go into effect on Aug. 1, 2008. The document lists 55 behaviors that will not be tolerated in the courtroom. These include opening a court session after drinking alcohol, arbitrarily switching the dates or times of hearings, using foul language and interrupting the lawyers during court proceedings.
Moreover, 11 sentences have been expressly forbidden to judges while on the bench. These include, "Stop saying any more!"; "Is it you or I who knows the law?"; "Your case is sure to lose!"; "Annoying!" and "I'll judge this case as I like, you can go anywhere you like to accuse me for this judgment." Judges who use these expressions in court are to be penalized.
This decision by the High Court of Henan embodies a policy initiated by the central government in an effort to improve the attitude and manner of judges. As far back as 2002 the Supreme Court of the People's Republic of China issued a similar edict aimed at improving the professionalism of judicial authorities. This followed instructions from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on adjusting the attitude and manner of judges in order to improve their image and that of the people's courts.
For a judge to earn a good public image involves many aspects of his performance, including his professional knowledge and skill as well as his moral and ethical character. Conforming to external standards of behavior that comply with professional ethics will surely help generate a positive image.
Moreover, judicial credibility comes not only from following proper procedures and demonstrating a reasonable grasp of the law. There must be standards of justice and fairness by which their rulings can be evaluated. These standards are necessarily higher for judges than for those in other occupations, due to the need to maintain the authority of the courts.
The call to improve the image of judges is timely and necessary. However, image and manners are a matter of people's impressions, which are very abstract and varied. In many situations, violations of the rules might be sensed but could not be proven, such as opening a hearing after drinking. For example, there was once a judge in Shanxi province named Yao Xiaohong, who received a government award as an excellent judge despite being known among the people for his blindness in matters of culture, manner and law. Later he was convicted of criminal activities.
The authorities responsible for evaluating a judge's style, attitude and manners will not be in a position to accurately make such judgments. It is the people who come into contact with the judge that will be able to really assess these things.
Now the problem is how to come up with a mechanism that will give lawyers and ordinary people the right to participate in evaluating judges, so that those who damage the image of the judiciary and cause dissatisfaction among the people will be dismissed from the profession and can swiftly change to a different career.
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(Gao Yifei is a professor at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law. This article is edited and translated from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online; the original can be found at www.chinahexie.org. ©Copyright Gao Yifei.)
