Enhancing Integration of Digital Technology and Court Work

Towards Modernization of Judicial System and Judicial Capability

Yang Linping, Justice, Vice-President，President of the Sixth Circuit Court of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China

Honorable Justices,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear friends,

Good morning / afternoon! Chinese President Xi Jinping has profoundly pointed out that the world is undergoing an expansive and profound technological revolution and industrial transformation. Continuous breakthroughs are being made in modern information technology, including the Internet, big data, and AI. The digital economy is booming, and the interests of all countries are becoming more closely connected. With the accelerated evolution of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, digital economy is becoming the priority of scientific and technological progress and industrial development for countries all over the world.

The Chinese courts firmly implement the Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law and on strengthening cybersecurity and IT application, vigorously push forward the in-depth integration of digital technology and judicial work, and launch a smart court information system that enables "online handling of all business, whole-process public disclosure by law, and all-round intelligent services" of courts at four levels nationwide. All these efforts have comprehensively reshaped the judicial working mode, evidently improved judicial quality and efficiency, and effectively promoted fairness and justice. In this regard, the Chinese courts have contributed the Chinese solution and wisdom to the world’s rule of law in the information era.

First, making extensive use of Internet technology to build a one-stop diversified dispute resolution and litigation service system, deepening judicial openness and reshaping the judicial service model in the Internet era. The world's first Internet Court was set up among Chinese courts and the "online services of the people's courts" information platform was launched to provide one-stop convenient judicial services for the general public, with functions of online case filing, online mediation, online hearing, online file reviewing, online cross-examination, electronic service, etc., covering more than 3,500 courts nationwide, with a cumulative number of over 2.3 billion visits. In 2021, more than 10 million disputes were mediated online, with 51 cases successfully resolved online every minute. Instead of making nearly six trips to the court to complete a lawsuit in the past on average, now a litigant needs to make only one or two trips, or even no trip at all. In this way, people’s litigation rights are protected effectively and conveniently in accordance with the law. Four platforms for openness of judicial process information, court trial, judgments, and enforcement information were established in response to relevant measures for judicial openness. The website of the China Judgements Online alone has been visited 86 billion times, making it an important platform for the general public to understand justice, approach justice, experience judicial fairness and justice and carry out legal research. All the efforts contribute to the formation of an open, dynamic, clean and convenient mechanism of transparent justice.

Second, actively taking advantage of AI and blockchain technology to improve efficiency and quality of trial and enforcement. The Chinese courts attach great importance to making breakthroughs in judicial AI technology, and developing intelligent services such as speech recognition in trials, image recognition of files, automatic generation of judicial instruments, and automatic inspection of trials, to turn digital technology into judicial productivity. In this way, we reduced the clerical work of judges by more than 30% and improved the efficiency of trials by over 20%. At the stage of enforcement of judicial decisions, we make use of information technology in person and property searching, seizure and freezing, punishment for trust-breaking individuals, online auction and other work, and have built and formed a modern enforcement information system, with 94.54% of cases with property available for enforcement concluded within the statutory time limit of trial, providing robust technical support for realizing the rights and interests of the winning parties in the lawsuits. We have inaugurated a judicial blockchain platform, with extensive application scenarios of data storage and verification, smart contracting, trusted operations and cross-chain collaboration, to foster an open and synergistic structure for the blockchain application, with a cumulative total of 2.232 billion evidence, which effectively improved judicial efficiency, promoted judicial credibility and maintained the unity of the rule of law.

Third, substantially applying judicial big data technology to effectively facilitate judicial administration and social governance. We have built a big data management and service platform covering courts at four levels nationwide, which automatically updates the case data every five minutes. The platform has collected the information of 270 million cases and enables the automatic generation of 7.5 million judicial statistical statements every year, so that the Chinese courts can completely bid farewell to the era of manually created statistics. It effectively improves the accuracy and scientific nature of judicial statistics and judicial administration, and lays a solid foundation for accurately analyzing and judging on the operation trend of trial and enforcement. We give full play to the value attribute of judicial big data as an economic and social barometer and indicator, set up a judicial index system geared to the needs of social governance, and carry out special analyses of judicial big data on front-burner issues of social governance, such as high-rise littering, bus driver-rider conflicts, telecom fraud, financial fraud and online shopping disputes, effectively contribute to economic and social decision-making and legislative improvement, and create a new model of judicial big data underpinning social governance.

Fourth, building information infrastructure with integration of cloud and network to ensure security and controllability of the information system. With consideration of the needs for network, computing, storage and other infrastructure, we have built integrated information infrastructure covering five major networks and three cloud platforms, which allows courts nationwide to handle cases on a unified network and enables cross-network data sharing and exchange in a secured way. We made rules, regulations and standards for the online operation of the information system of the people’s courts, implemented the requirements on protection of the information system security, and prevented computer viruses, network attacks, network intrusions and other activities endangering network security through the security guarantee system. We established a unified user identity authentication system, formulated rules on classified and categorized protection for data, data security emergency response, and data security audit, and optimized the data security protection mechanism. With IT-based tools, we support automatic shielding of sensitive personal information in judicial openness, make sure that personal privacy, personal information and other data in judicial activities such as online litigation and online mediation are kept confidential in accordance with the law, and ensure network security, data security and personal information protection in the operation of smart courts.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends,

Looking ahead, the Chinese courts will continue to seize opportunities amid development of the digital economy, comprehensively deepen the construction of smart courts, constantly optimize the mode of Internet-based justice, and comprehensively modernize the judicial system and judicial capability. The Chinese courts are ready to cement exchanges, mutual learning and pragmatic cooperation with all participants present here, to jointly promote in-depth application of digital technology in the judicial field, and renew our great contributions to the world’s rule of law in the information era. Thank you!