Conflict And Coordination On The Relations Between Judiciary And Public Opinion

With the improving of the social attention for the judicial process, supervisionfrom public opinion played a significant role in ensuring the operation of judicialtrial public and justice and protecting the legitimate interest of vulnerable groups,made up the shortage of the existing within system supervision; But at the same time,by means of turning sensitive and difficult cases to public events，public opinionsterribly impacted the independence and authority of judicial authority, it will put thejudicial under the danger of "media trial", Hinder the realization of social justice.Therefore, the relationship between the judiciary and public opinions received muchacademic attention, this article attempts to analyze and discuss the relationshipbetween the judiciary and public opinions from two aspects, which are conflict andcoordination.This article consists of three parts:Part one firstly analyzed the cases attracted public attention in recent years, byanalyzing the interactive relationship among the court, the litigants and the media inthe external of individual cases and the deep struggle between power and publicopinions in the internal, revealed the conflicting relationship between judiciary andpublic opinions meticulously and vividly.Furthermore, part two analyzed the focus of theoretical conflict in therelationship between judiciary and public opinions from four aspects, which are theindependence of the judiciary and the media trial, the fair trial and the freedom ofexpression, the legal professional rationality and the popular rationality, legal justiceand moral justice, introspected the deep theoretical conflict behind these four sets ofcontradictory focus. First of all, the independence of the judiciary are foundation andprotection of the fair of the judiciary, public opinions supervise judiciary should appropriate, media trial is an interference to fair trail from public opinions withdiscourse hegemony, excessive supervision by public opinions can obstruct theindependence and the justice of the judiciary and need to be vigilant. Secondly, fairtrial is the basic rights of the litigants, freedom of expression is also ourconstitutional rights, both are consistent in the pursuit of value, but it embodiedmany contradictions in the process of realization, calls for system to guarantee theunity of these two values. Thirdly, in the judicial trial of the public controversy cases,the conflict of the judiciary and public opinions reflected the differences between thelegal professional rationality from Judge and public rationality from the masses. It isworth the great importance of the theoretical circle. Fourthly, similarly, in therelationship between the judiciary and public opinions, implied a gap between thelegal justice that legal professionals pursued and moral justice of the masses, legaljustice will be fully realized only as the basic values of moral justice respected.Part three attempted to explore the resolving Path to reconcile the contradictionsof the relationship between judiciary and public opinions from the threeperspectives—the judicial trial department, the news media and organs of statepower. From the judicial organs point of view, firstly, they should establish aspokesman system, improve the communication mechanism between the courts andthe media; Secondly, enhance the argumentation and reasoning of the refereedocuments; Thirdly, require not only the improvement of legislation, but also theamplification of the judicial function; Fourthly, improve the mechanism of theindependence of the judiciary. From the perspective of the news media, the publicopinions should clear in role positioning; the supervision of public opinions shouldabide the bottom line of the law; the media reports should ensure the bottom line ofprofessional ethics; the news reports should follow the basic rules of publicopinions’ supervision. From the perspective of the authority, the supervisorymechanism of the judicial process should not be limited in public opinions, shouldpay more attention to improve the existing supervision by the NPC system, unite thepower and public opinions within the legal system to effectively supervise thefunctioning of the judiciary. At the present stage, the contradictions of the relationship between the judiciaryand public opinions in the process of judicial supervision by public opinionsreflected as multi-agent, multi-level interactive relationship, from the theoreticalperspective, it can mainly be refined for the following four pairs of contradictoryrelationship，which are the independence of the judiciary and the media trial, the fairtrial and the freedom of expression, the legal professional rationality and the popularrationality, legal justice and moral justice. It won’t achieve the coordinateddevelopment of the judiciary and the media relations until that the all three subjects，including the courts, the media，and the power sectors，work together under theprinciple of respecting the rule of law.