Guangzhou's legislators have been invited to oversee court trials and give suggestions to make the judiciary more transparent.

The program, initiated by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court, will invite at least 1,000 municipal people's congress deputies to hear 100 cases. The deputies can select the trials they wish to hear.

But the court has also made it clear that the deputies will not be allowed to intervene in the trials and will have no influence on the verdicts.

"The legislators are not invited to monitor the trials," said Yu Mingyong, vice president of the court, "this is different from previous occasions when the legislature decided to intervene upon receiving complaints about legal injustice."

He said the cases open to hearing are mainly about labor disputes or other civil matters.

The court, the city's legislature and resident community each have the right to nominate trial hearing representatives.

The first group of more than 20 deputies heard a labor dispute case Friday.

After the 90-minute hearing, they gave opinions on trial procedures and rated the abilities of the judge.

Huang Weiping, chief of the State-owned Guangzhou Engineering Group, said she would submit a written proposal to the court on protecting employees' rights.

Liu Xuemei, a teacher from the Guangzhou No. 23 Middle School, welcomed the program.

"It opens a window, though still narrow, to the general public on the 'mysteries' of court trials."

Most court trials are carried out behind closed doors on the mainland and the general public can only peep into the details through news reports.

Editor: Donald