Spokesman for Supreme People's Court Sun Jungong announced yesterday that he had started a public blog. He is the first person in China's judicial circles to do so, and he said his bottom line is that he will not tell lies.

Sun told Beijing News yesterday that he had not yet decided how often he would update the blog and exactly what it would contain. "The blog will be somewhere in between official and personal. My bottom line is that I will not tell lies, but I can't promise that everyone's questions will be answered, " Sun said.

"I didn't realize I was the first legal official to do this. Netizens often ask how to contact me, then someone from Xinhuanet suggested I start a blog, and I thought it might be a good idea." Sun opened his blog yesterday morning after giving an interview to Xinhuanet.

In his first blog post, Sun summed up his job objectives as performing his duties faithfully and being open and frank with the media and the public. He said he had not yet received formal authorization from the Supreme People's Court (SPC) to start the blog, so he would be prudent in his entries and when answering questions. "Regarding the progress of major cases, I will brief the public at formal press conferences," Sun said. He added that the SPC was considering soliciting public opinion through public mails.

By of 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, the blog had received 7,489 visitors who had left 130 comments. "We accept the promise not to tell lies, but we don't want to see silence most of the time," one netizen commented.

Sun said he welcomed netizens to leave suggestions and opinions on his blog and said he would report them to decision makers as swiftly as possible.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Yunxing, April 22, 2009)