On the Reform of the Court Sub-volume System -- with the Lawyer’s Right to Read the Volumes as an Entry Point

摘要: Court Sub-volume System is our court in practice the formation of customary system, there is no clear legal basis, sub-volume content more than the main volume, containing the authorities that need to be kept confidential materials and comply with the principle of confidentiality of the sub-volume is not available to the public. Among them, the approval of the judgment, the panel transcripts, the trial committee discussion transcripts are the unique content of the sub-volume. However, behind the creation of these contents there is an unreasonable approval and request, “joint but not deliberative” collegiality and “trial, judgment separation” of the trial committee involved in the problem, can not maintain the legitimacy of the content. With the advancement of judicial reform, many scholars have advocated the abolition of the system itself, as well as the disclosure of the sub-volumes to be monitored by society. However, the lack of practicality, the system has existed for a long time is difficult to be abolished at the present time, the majority of judges opposed to the public and the public damage to the credibility of the judiciary. At present, the correct logic of reform should be to retain the system on the premise of promoting the right of lawyers to read files to cover the materials in the sub-volume, at the same time, standardize lawyers’ duty of confidentiality, and give them the right to object and set up a review system of the court’s sub-volume, to establish a set of lawyers to supervise the functioning of the court’s sub-volume system mechanism. This mechanism, based on the internal oversight of the legal profession, can provide an effective guarantee of the legitimacy of the sub-volume.