On The Public Opinion's Influence On The Judicial Independence

On March 31,2008, the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court convicted Xu Ting of theft, sentenced him to five years in prison, and fined him 20,000 Yuan, which is a remedy of 173,826 Yuan withdrawn by him. Xu Ting asserted in the court that he would not appeal. So far, the case, which draws concerns nation-wide, has finally been settled done. From the author's perspective, the biggest concern in this case is the problem of judicial independence. In recent years, with the improvement of China's media technologies, the diversity of different means of media communication, the public opinion's supervision in the system of judicial supervision is of rising importance. However, whether the public opinion's supervision plays a great and beneficial role in the field of supervision or not is still under discussion. In the author's opinion, in China'system of judicial supervision, social supervision by public opinion is certainly an integral part, and does play a certain role. However, public opinion, as a double-edged sword, sometimes "excessively intervenes" the jurisdiction, and tends to push the court under the pressure of public criticism and therefore, the final verdicts are more or less affected by those public opinions.Through the discussion of "Xu Ting case", this paper attempts to explore the contemporary situation of the impact that the public opinion has made on the independence of judiciary in our society, dig the source of the impact mentioned above and promote the solutions to solve the problems, with the hope that may be helpful to change the current dilemma faced by the court when finding the balance between public opinions and judicial independence. This article is divided into three chapters. The first chapter, which states basic facts, is a simple introduction of the basic facts of the case, the proceedings, and the feedback from the public as well as the public opinion's remarkable influence on the judicial activities during the proceedings. Chapter two is a brief introduction of the relationship between the public opinion and the principle of judicial independence. This chapter mainly discusses, from the perspective of jurisprudence, the connotations of the supervision under public opinion and the judicial independence, and the positive as well as negative impacts the public opinion has on the judicial independence. The third Chapter centers around this case, analyzes the public opinion's influence on the independence of the Judiciary and offers some suggestions. This paper emphasizes on three elements:media, legal experts and the public, which all play a certain role in the trial proceedings and affect the trial.Judiciary independence and supervision by public opinion are both indispensable to democratic states in modern society. It is undeniable that both share a high degree of consistence from the view of ultimate value, which is that both exist to prove the value of justice and the human rights. However in practice, there exist a certain tension, and sometimes even conflicts, between those two elements. Therefore, how should we strike a balance between the conflicts of interests caused by the above-mentioned elements desires a high degree of attention in modern democratic states.