"The trial should be open, and the criminal evidence should be open, so that public opinion, which may be the only means of social restraint, can restrain strength and desire." Open trial should be understood as the publicity of the whole litigation procedure, including the publicity of the whole process of the case from beginning to end, that is, from the beginning of the case? The filing and trial of a case, the announcement and entry into force of the referee (including appeal hearing procedure and retrial procedure, etc.). ), even extended to the execution of the procedure until the end of execution (if the execution of the procedure is also regarded as a continuation of the trial procedure). The whole process of such a case should be open, transparent and sunny. This also includes the review of jurisdictional objections, evidence preservation, objection review of property preservation, negotiation of appraisal evaluation, hearing review of judges' withdrawal, notice and withdrawal of the list of members of the judicial Committee, notice of majority opinions and minority opinions in the judgment results, objection review of the executed property, etc. Simply put, as long as it can be made public, it will not harm state secrets, commercial secrets or the privacy of others, and it will not harm the special category of minors' protection. This is stipulated by the Constitution of China and many other laws. Judging from the long history of litigation development, the influence of words can only play a subordinate role in the overall trend of trial openness. On the other hand, the degree of democratization of justice and society is the key factor that has the greatest influence on this trend. In ancient Rome, most civil and criminal cases were tried in public, that is, after the parties appeared in court. Corresponding to public trial, the principle of court debate is adopted, allowing the parties and their protectors to defend themselves, and the judgment can only be made after the debate is over. When a court judge pronounced a sentence in court, he should generally read out the full text of the judgment publicly. It should be said that the adoption of public trial at that time was closely related to the sound litigation system and open political atmosphere in ancient Rome. By the end of Rome, this situation had changed greatly. With the strengthening of absolutism in judicial trial, public litigation in the period of Wang Zheng developed into secret trial, and judicial arbitrariness was very common. With the development of the times, the democratization of social politics and judicial trial has not developed with it. For example, in the Middle Ages, both church trials and secular trials were mainly conducted in secret, and the whole process of litigation was basically closed, maintaining a state of isolation not only for society but also for the parties. The reason and purpose of secret trial is nothing more than, "the status of judges and adults is the highest; They don't want to appear in public, and regard themselves as treasures of practice, and outsiders are not interested. "Its original intention is to make judicial arbitrariness and arbitrariness be implemented and implemented in closed litigation; At the same time, with the help of this way of closing the case, the horror and mystery of the trial are strengthened.

During the modern bourgeois revolution, Hegel regarded litigation and trial as the realization of law in special events. "According to the common sense of integrity, it can be seen that the openness of the trial is justified and correct ... and citizens' trust in the law should be part of the law. It is this aspect that requires the openness of the trial. The basis of openness lies in, first of all, the purpose of judges is law, which, as a universality, should be known to the common people; Secondly, through the openness of the trial, citizens are convinced that the court's judgment really expresses the law. "With the concept of fairness, justice and the rule of law deeply rooted in people's hearts, public trial has become an irrefutable law. During the bourgeois democratic revolution, the slogan of public trial was put forward to oppose the secret trial principle implemented by feudal autocracy, which was the product of people's political thought demanding democracy, liberation and freedom. After the victory of the bourgeois revolution, France established this system for the first time in 1806 Civil Procedure Law. Subsequently, public trials were formally established and implemented in most countries in the world.

In China, from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century, the litigation was characterized by secrecy. After entering the 20th century, due to the pressure of domestic and international situations on China, the Qing government was forced to reform the legal system and judicial system by imitating the West. 1906, the first independent procedural code of old China, the Draft Criminal and Civil Procedure Law of Qing Dynasty, was drafted under the auspices of Shen Jiaben; 19 10, the Law on the Establishment of Courts was promulgated and implemented; 19 1 1 year, with the assistance of Japanese jurist Masayoshi Matsuoka, the Draft Civil Procedure Law of the Qing Dynasty was drafted. However, this system of blind imitation was destroyed with the sound of a cannon in the Revolution of 1911 without public implementation. Nanjing Provisional Government, established after the Revolution of 1911, absorbed the normative content of bourgeois procedural law, carried out revolutionary and advanced litigation legal practice activities, adopted the trial system of western countries, and called it civilized trial. The Beiyang government, which usurped the fruits of the victory of the Revolution of 1911, is known as the "Republic of China", but its litigation system is a reaction to the Nanjing Provisional Government. In order to meet the needs of rule, Beiyang government tried its best to expand and strengthen military judicial organs, and often replaced ordinary judicial procedures with military laws and military trials. According to the trial regulations of Lu Haijun during the period of Beiyang Warlords, military courts are not allowed to attend the trial, invite defenders and appeal, and conduct secret trials and secret executions, thus making arbitrary trials and ignoring human lives. Similarly, during the period of Kuomintang rule, secret trials were often used to prevent revolutionaries from using the court as a forum to publicize the revolution, expose reactionaries and spread the truth.

The new democratic litigation system implemented in the vast revolutionary base areas is a brand-new litigation legal system. It takes Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought as the fundamental guiding ideology of litigation legislation and judicature, and reflects the will and fundamental interests of the broad masses of the people led by the proletariat. Adhering to the principle of open trial fully embodies the extensive democracy of the new democratic legal system, which not only enables the court to educate the masses on law and discipline through trial activities, but also puts the trial work under the supervision of the masses and improves the quality of trials. For example, Article 16 of the Regulations on Temporary Organization of Trials by the Chinese Soviet Ministry of Justice, which was created during the Agrarian Revolution, stipulates: "Trials must be made public. If there is a secret relationship, it can be held in secret, but the judgment should still be held in public. " 194 1May 10 "instructions of the high court of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region on county judicial work" says: "the judgment cases are completely open, and people's trials can be held to make judgments when necessary. However, cases that are not suitable for public trial by law are excluded. " After the founding of New China, trial openness, as an important part of the national system, has been clearly stipulated in the Constitution and embodied in the three major procedural laws. In addition to the Constitution of 1975, the Constitution of 1954 and the current Constitution, three departments have established a public trial system. At the same time, from the provisions of China's civil procedure law, criminal procedure law and constitutional administrative procedure law, we can know that in China, public trial is the principle, and closed trial is the exception. Only under special circumstances stipulated by law can the trial be held in camera.