Supervision By Public Opinion And Justice Conflict And Coordination

One of modern life's characteristics is that our judicial system has drawn more and more attention fan the society. Our court system, prosecutors' office and a police force have never been a focal point like it is today.We have noticed that either the case-law system of the U.S. and the U.K.., or the Continental Law does not accept the concept of "subjecting legal system to media scrutiny". The argument against media's scrutiny on legal matter from the U.S. or the U.K. in particular in the U.S. where the jury plays an important role in the judicial system, is that: jury is formed with ordinary people without much of legal knowledge and therefore, they are very volatile to the influence of outside elements ( Specially the influence from media ). If the structure of legal system could not prevent such influence, the legal independence and justice could be affected. In countries of continental legal system, it has been a strong focus on the legal knowledge. For instance, Germany has prevented from any public or unprofessional discussion or debate or the pending cases.For these internal reasons ( two very different characters ), there is a conflict existing between the freedom of press and the fair trial, which we need to try to resolve through our system structuring. In every society, there is a tension as between progress and conservation. There should be a mutually complementary relationship. Therefore, the issue is how to maintain a healthy force in the balance of two different needs and seek a balanced system as between the freedom of press and the fair trial.We need to avoid the conflict in real life between the freedom of press and the fair trial which is caused by human elements. The accumulation of human elements in different levels may cause substantial damages and waste to our judicial system. Of course, every operating system may be subject to certain waste. But we still need to use legislation, and in particular, professional ethics to reduce the disturbance from human behavior.In China, both legal and media's professional is still remains at a very low level.Therefore, when we study the relationship between the press and the jurisdiction, we have to take a compromising position - the judicial system must allow a certain level of involvement of press. But at the same time, we cannot allow the press to intervene in the handling of judicial matters. Under these conditions, the press may report and comment on court trials. The press has the obligation to respect the independence of our judicial system. This rule can help establish a mutual respect between the two system. Second, the adoption of press law will provide a legal framework for the press activities and therefore, further promote the coordination and consolidation as between the concepts of press supervision and judicial fairness.