After China's top judge and top prosecutor delivered their work reports to the annual session of the National People's Congress on Thursday, many headlines highlighted the "self-reproach" that Zhou Qiang, Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), used when referring to past miscarriages of justice, notably the Huugjilt case in which the 18-year-old was wrongly convicted and executed for rape and murder. The rare use of such strong words suggests that the judicial authorities have been reflecting on their flaws and proactively responding to the public's doubts about the fairness of China's judicial system.

In recent years, the booming of the Internet has offered a platform for Chinese people to observe major issues taking place and express their opinions. This has produced unprecedentedly powerful supervision on judicial institutions as the rule of law advances. In this context, the public with increasing legal awareness is set to pay more attention to fairness and justice and insist on higher requirements over the performance of judicial institutions. It seems that the judicial authorities are becoming more aware of this trend and acting to catch up.

Statistics can illustrate the story. According to reports by the SPC and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), last year courts nationwide revised verdicts in 1,317 cases and corrected a series of wrongful convictions. There were acquittals of 518 defendants in public prosecutions and 260 in private prosecutions to ensure that people can't be found guilty unless solid evidence is available. Both the SPC and SPP also found a large number of staff in judicial institutions had been misbehaving.

In fact an array of measures has been taken by judicial authorities to ensure fairness and justice. Last month the SPC and SPP issued guidelines to outline specific reform measures. Pilot programs have been carried out to lessen interference from the outside on judicial work and improve the independence of judicial systems.

Meanwhile, there are still many aspects to improve on during judicial proceedings and more efforts are needed to meet the public's expectations. The SPC and SPP reports also emphasized transparency and information disclosure in the future and ordinary people will be able to play a role in supervising the work of courts and procuratorates to prevent wrongful convictions from happening.

Efforts to advance the rule of law involve the retrospection of the judicial authorities and corrections of any loopholes. At a critical stage of deepening reform, China still has to endeavor to properly address miscarriages of justice and build up public trust in the judicial system.