Recently the Supreme People’s Court promulgated the Several Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Audio and Video Recordings of Hearings in People’s Courts (Fa Shi [2017] No.5) (hereinafter, the “Several Provisions”), which will be implemented on March 1, 2017.

  The Several Provisions explicitly provide that the People’s Courts should produce full-length audio and video recordings of hearings. The courts should also help litigants, defense attorneys and agents ad litem review audio and video recordings of hearings using a trial proceedings information publication platform, a litigation services platform and other convenient service platforms, and it should guarantee the exercise of these parties’ right to reproduce audio or video recordings of hearings in accordance with the law.

  Excerpted from the official website of the Supreme People’s Court (www.court.gov.cn)