RESEARCH ON THE BUILDING OF CHINA’S SMART COURT IN THE INTERNET ERA
Li Xiaohui
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. THE BASIC THEORY OF CHINA’S SMART COURT
A. The Relationship between China’s Smart Court and Chinese Court Information 3.0
B. Three Basic Features of China’s Smart Court
C. The Aims of China’s Smart Court
II. THE NECESSITY AND IMPORTANCE OF THE BUILDING OF CHINA’S SMART COURT
A. The Inevitable Requirement of the Internet Age
B. Responding to Global Changes Actively on the World Horizon
C. A Major Step in Enhancing Judicial Credibility
D. The Effective Means to Enhance People’s Sense of Gain
E. Important Supporting for Deepening the Judicial Reform of China’s Court
III. THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF CHINA’S SMART COURT
A. A ‘Shared Website’ for Carrying Out All Operations Online
B. Significant Results of Judicial Transparency
C. Using Intelligent Services to Continue to Meet the Increasing Demand for Justice
D. The Establishment of Three Internet Courts
IV. THE MAIN PROBLEMS AND RESOLUTION STRATEGIES OF CHINA’S SMART COURT
A. Lack of a Unified System which Can Collect Data Produced from Different Courts’ System
B. The Risks for the System Security in China’s Courts
C. Lack of the Infrastructure Resource and the Human Resource of the Courts
D. The Problems Produced during the Judicial Transparency of Chinese Courts
V. THE FUTURE OF CHINA’S SMART COURT
A. Focusing on the Construction of Artificial Intelligence System
B. Promoting the Development and Application of Judicial Data Resources
C. Making Good Use of Blockchain in the Judicial Work
D. Improving the Capacity in Serving Judicial Management and Integral Justice
VI. CONCLUSION
The smart court has three basic features, namely networking, transparency, and intelligence. The aim of China’s smart court is serving the people, adjudication and enforcement, judicial management and integral justice. The building of China’s smart court is the inevitable requirement of the internet age, the responding to global changes actively on the world horizon, a major step in enhancing judicial credibility, the effective means to enhance people’s sense of gain and also an important support for deepening the judicial reform of China’s court, which are five aspects for necessity and importance of the building of China’s smart court. Now the basic structure of smart court had been preliminarily formed. The first step deals with the establishment of a ‘shared website’ for all courts nationwide for carrying out all operations online. The second step deals with the establishment of judicial transparency platforms. The third step deals with using intelligent services to continue to meet the increasing demand for justice, such as the big data management and service platform, the visual legal eye platform, the national unified judicial chain platform system, other online platforms for registering complaints and so on. In addition, we also established three internet courts. However, there are four main problems for China’s smart court, which are the data produced by different courts is not being collected by a unified system, the risks for system security, the lack of the infrastructure resource and human resource for the courts and the problems during the judicial transparency. For these problems, we have taken different and effective measures to resolve them. In the future, the trend of China’s smart court is focusing on the construction of artificial intelligence system, promoting the development and application of judicial data resources, making good use of blockchain in the judicial work as well as improving our capacity in serving judicial management and integral justice.I. THE BASIC THEORY OF CHINA’S SMART COURTIn fact, the 21st Century is the age of information. This revolution adds huge new capacities to human intelligence and constitutes a resource which changes the way we work together and the way we live together. The judiciary should be able to take advantage of the new opportunities offered by information technology to offer a professionally excellent service to the community. As we all are familiar with the main business of the judiciary is to hear and decide the cases in a fair and timely manner without being delayed or without being unnecessary hurried.Xi Jinping, China’s President, has pointed out that ‘there can be no modernization without information technology’. In the information technology times, the people’s courts at all levels in China have made good use of advanced technology to build smart courts. In 2016, the development of smart court was incorporated in the Outline for National Informatization Development Strategy and the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Informatization. Courts in China are promoting modernization of the adjudication system and capabilities with the development of information technology. The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has established and is implementing the Fourth Five-Year Reform Plan of the People’s Courts, which includes a series of plans to strengthen informatization construction. The building of China’s smart court is an important and meaningful task for all courts. It is worth to embrace informatization 3.0 at the people’s courts by the end of 2017, and deepen and improve informatization 3.0 at the people’s courts by the end of 2020.A smart court is a form of organization, construction, operation and management of people’s courts based on modern information technology that realizes online transaction of all businesses, publishing of all the procedures according to law as well as providing comprehensive smart service. It is centered on the provision of justice for the people and judicial impartiality and adheres to the integration of judicial rules, institutional reform and technology innovation.A. The Relationship between China’s Smart Court and Chinese Court Information 3.0Scale Project, an information technology project, has been implemented. At the end of 2015, with the concerted efforts, the courts at all levels in China have established the Chinese Court Information 2.0. Aiming at building the smart court, we are actively promoting the development of Chinese Court Information 3.0, of which the data is central. Chinese Court Information 3.0 has such six features: (i) Full coverage; (ii) Movement and interconnection; (iii) Spanning boundaries and integration; (iv) Depth of application; (v) Transparency and convenience for the people; (vi) Safety and controllable nature.In recent years, information has been applied to all aspects of the court’s affairs, which has affected and changed the work mode of the court deeply. Now, information technology is no longer limited to the information technology itself, it has become the carrier of the organization, management and construction of the people’s court. Therefore, the building of China’s smart court has been put forward in 2016, which is the higher requirement of operation form of the people’s court. It can be said that Chinese Court Information 3.0 is a stage of court information construction, while China’s smart court is a form based on the information construction. The building of China’s smart court is a common mission for the information technology sector and other departments. Other departments should put forward needs and use information systems actively, while information technology departments should provide user-friendly and versatile information systems for all departments.B. Three Basic Features of China’s Smart CourtThe smart court has three basic features, namely networking, transparency, and intelligence. Networking refers to online transaction of all businesses, which include internal businesses, such as adjudication and enforcement, adjudication management, judicial administrative affairs and discipline inspection, and external businesses, such as judicial transparency, litigation service and legal publicity. Transparency refers to the publishing of all processes according to law, involving all elements of adjudication and enforcement. It means that case filing, court hearing, enforcement, public hearing, instruments and adjudicative affairs are publicized in an overall and multi-dimensional way. Intelligence refers to all-round intelligent services, which implies that intelligent services are provided for judges, litigants, general public and administrative departments, making full use of all available information technology means.These three basic characteristics promote one another and integrate organically. Online transaction of all businesses reflects the conception that the work of people’s courts can be informationized, which is the basic work of China’s smart court; publishing of all the procedures according to laws shows the determination of judicial transparency, which is the external requirements of China’s smart court; providing comprehensive smart services highlights the advanced nature and sense of China’s smart court, which is the important direction of promoting the level of China’s smart court.C. The Aims of China’s Smart CourtPeople have a great demand of fairness and justice, a firm faith they all hold. The building of China’s smart court should meet the increasing demand for pluralistic judiciaries of the masses through judicial transparency, litigation services and the law propaganda. The level of scientific decision-making management of court work can be improved through the administrative affairs, personnel management, decision support and other kinds of information construction. In the process of the building of China’s smart court, there have been many remarkable results in serving the people, adjudication and enforcement, judicial management and integral justice.II. THE NECESSITY AND IMPORTANCE OF THE BUILDING OF CHINA’S SMART COURTAccelerating the building of China’s smart court is an important part of the national information development strategy. Advanced science and technology play an important role in promoting and safeguarding the work of China’s courts earnestly. China’s courts at all levels should understand the necessity and great significance of speeding up the building of China’s smart court fully.A. The Inevitable Requirement of the Internet AgeToday, the internet is at the heart of a third industrial revolution, making the world change fast. The internet has undoubtedly become an inevitable part of our lives; many people are relying on the internet to carry out their various tasks. In this backdrop, throughout the world, information and communication technologies are generating a new industrial revolution already as significant and far-reaching as those of the past. Information technology which includes cloud computing, big data and internet of things is reshaping the profile and structure of social production and living. Technological progress now enables us to process, store, retrieve and communicate information in whatever form it may take, unconstrained by distance, time and volume.The frontiers of technology are constantly extending. This revolution adds huge new capacities to human intelligence. In the midst of society change, the technologies, in fact, have rapidly been improved and transformed. The technological revolution age inevitably changes the way we live, the way we interact with each other. The judiciary should also absorb and embrace this change, too. The court should harness the new ideas, techniques and resources to get more justice. The ideal for all informatization becomes an important component of the system of court work, which includes not only the traditional methods and the forms of data records, but also the system of automatic data processing, multimedia, telecommunications and remote sensing means of data access. The idea of technology use is to facilitate efficiency of our day-to-day work in rendering justice to the people.B. Responding to Global Changes Actively on the World HorizonToday, the rapid development of information technology affects the society uncommonly. Human civilization has entered the information society after passing the agricultural society and industrial society. The nature of information technology itself means that it is exothermic, subject to constant growth and exposure to the wrath of regulation either in legal, societal or scientific form. In other words, information technology is determining the direction of social reform and social development in an unprecedented way. In the wave of information technology, many countries have developed information technology to occupy an important place during the process of economic development in the future.Taking great importance to the development of information technology into consideration, China has launched many strategies which are related to big data in recent years, which point out the direction and road of China’s information technology development. From a global perspective, the judicial practice in many countries around the world, both the civil law countries and common law countries have been actively exploring the court’s information construction, in order to use technology to achieve more high-quality and efficient judicial work. Some countries have developed the artificial intelligence (AI) behavior model to predict the results of the court referee, which achieve the accuracy rate of 79 percent. In a word, the using of AI analysis enhances the efficiency of handling the cases significantly. Therefore, to build China’s smart court is an inevitable choice for us to face the new wave of scientific and technological revolution.C. A Major Step in Enhancing Judicial CredibilityThe Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, held on October 20-23, 2014, made a strategic plan for improving a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics, for which to safeguard judicial justice and to improve judicial credibility are necessary requirements. Technologies such as big data and AI are effective means to help courts improve the quality and efficiency of adjudications and regulate judicial administration.In the process of the building of China’s smart court, we have developed lots of information systems which can be used for online handling of cases; cases process management, judicial transparency and so on. On one hand, these information systems can improve the efficiency of adjudication and enforcement to serve the people better. On the other hand, these information systems can supervise the whole process of the cases to ensure justice. It is an important means to construct a socialist judicial system with fairness, efficiency and authority. The courts should understand the importance of accelerating the building of China’s smart court deeply, sum up the successful experience conscientiously, raise awareness and innovate ideas in order to promote the level of informationization of China’s courts.D. The Effective Means to Enhance People’s Sense of GainThe Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, held on October 26-29, 2015, pointed that we must adhere to the idea of people-centered development and putting the enhancing of people’s well-being and promoting the comprehensive development of humans as the starting point and the foothold of development.The work of the people’s court is facing many challenges and difficulties currently, of which the most prominent one is the contradiction between the people’s growing judicial demand and the lack of judicial capacity of people’s courts. The extensive application of information technology in social life has affected people’s way of thinking and behavior profoundly, which leads to that the judicial need of the public has shown new features. The smart court is the product of technological progress and political civilization. Practice has proved that the building of China’s smart court provides unlimited legal possibilities for richening the ways of litigation convenience. These effective ways have reduced the number of the parties being tried and promote the judicial efficiency. The courts at all levels should seize the opportunity to promote the Internet Plus transparent trial and provide service to meet the people’s judicial demand. E. Important Supporting for Deepening the Judicial Reform of China’s CourtChinese society is developing and changing. So the judicial system that is charged with the responsibility of maintaining social justice must be well adapted to the developments and changes. In the network age, the reform of judicial system should be connected with information technology. In promoting the development of the people’s court, the judicial reform of China’s court and the informationization of China’s courts are the wheels of the cars and the wings of the birds. The two promote each other and develop together. Information technology provides scientific and technological support for the judicial reform, and the needs of judicial reform show the direction of the informationization of China’s courts.In recent years, information technology has promoted the reform of the judicial responsibility system, deepened the reform of the registration system, promoted the trial-oriented reform of the criminal procedure system and promoted the pluralistic dispute settlement mechanism, the implementation of reform. Courts at all levels should use information technology to accelerate the building of China’s smart court, so as to solve the deep-seated problems which impact judicial justice.
III. THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF CHINA’S SMART COURT
Since 2013, the SPC has taken measures to use the achievement of information technology to all areas of adjudication, enforcement and judicial management, which make remarkable progress. The basic structure of smart court has been preliminarily formed.A. A ‘Shared Website’ for Carrying Out All Operations OnlineThe work model has changed a lot for the court, and the key to change is the sharing of data. In recent years, the people’s court of China has seized the opportunity given by the information age and promoted the integration of the judicial business and information technology of the national courts actively. A ‘shared website’ has been used by courts at all levels.1. Comprehensive Case Handling System. — The comprehensive case handling system facilitates quick circulation along with examination and approval of cases, while assisting judges in generating electronic files and producing judgment instruments in sync with cases. The establishment of these systems provides judges with a lot of convenience and offers effective technological support for ensuring judicial justice.The courts at all levels use a comprehensive handling platform to realize online marking, circulation and approval rapidly, improving the efficiency and quality of handling cases greatly. Furthermore, through the ‘shared website’, all court officials all over China can handle cases, work, study and communicate. It created conditions for online transaction of court’s internal business.2. Online Investigation and Control System. — Based on this website, the SPC has launched an online investigation and control system, covering all courts across the country, connecting more than 10 institutions, including the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Public Security, as well as more than 3,000 banks. This system enables conducting extensive investigation and control of information related to deposits, vehicles, vessels, and securities of persons subject to enforcement, covering major forms of properties. Through this system, many kinds of information, including bank deposits, can be inquired.3. A Credit Punishment System. — The SPC has established a credit punishment system for persons subject to enforcement. In collaboration with administrative departments, financial regulators and industry associations, it has restricted persons refusing to perform their obligations from making investment, carrying out high amount consumption and taking transport means. By doing so, it has made a substantive progress in resolving difficulties in enforcement basically.4. The Technological Court Rooms. — China’s courts have innovated in the publicity of court hearings, strengthened the application of technology courts, and publicized court hearings via video and audio. China’s courts at all levels established more than 20,000 technological court rooms to realize remote presentation of evidence and witness, recording of audio and video information on court hearings, and remote adjudication. By using the technological court rooms, the courts improve the judicial efficiency.B. Significant Results of Judicial TransparencyTransparency, it appears these days, is everywhere; or at least talk of it is everywhere. Judicial transparency is one of the most important judicial principles commonly followed by modern courts ruled by law. The extent of judicial transparency is also one of the most important criteria for measuring the level of rule of law in a country. Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done. In recent years, China’s courts have made great progress and yielded notable results in terms of innovation. In line with the idea of having a people-oriented judiciary based on fairness and justice, they have centered their operations on the goal of ‘letting the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case’, as proposed by President Xi Jinping. Taking judicial reform as the driving force, information technology as the support, the courts have comprehensively deepened judicial transparency through four online information platforms. The internet holds obvious promise as a tool for sharing more data, more widely, than has ever been possible before. They are striving to build an open, dynamic, transparent and convenient judicial mechanism, thereby promoting judicial justice and judicial creditability.1. Strengthening the Philosophy of Judicial Transparency. — China’s courts are fully aware of the great significance of judicial transparency. They take measures to make the judiciary transparency as a conscious act of every court and every judge. The SPC strengthens the top design, makes coordination efforts, and guides local courts at all levels to enhance awareness about transparency pragmatically, thereby ensuring the dispensing of justice. China’s courts have adhered to the principles of active, lawful and comprehensive transparency with transparency as a principle and non-transparency as an exception, making judicial transparency involve every area and process of adjudication and enforcement work. The aim is to protect the people’s rights to know, participate, express and supervise to the maximum extent. Based on people’s judicial needs, China’s courts have constantly improved interaction, service and convenience of judicial transparency platforms. They have turned judicial transparency reforms into an interactive process between courts at all levels and the social communities.2. Innovating the Carriers of Judicial Transparency. — First, building publicity platform for adjudication process. In judicial procedures, the term ‘procedure’ does refer to a formal, even unrealistic, series of steps. Rather, it refers to an organic and fluid arrangement in which laws, courts, litigants, judgment, and other governmental authorities rule together. China’s courts have launched the China Judicial Process Information Online and pushed case process information to parties concerned via multiple channels, such as website, SMS and WeChat. As for high people’s courts, they have established their own unified adjudication information platforms to public and linked the platforms to China Judicial Process Information Online. From the case acceptance date, at any time, with the valid identity certificates the parties concerned and their agents may inquire and download case process information and keep updated with latest progress of cases.Second, launching the China Court Hearing Online platform. Social equality and fairness is what everyone longs for. Judges should treat both parties equally and stay neutral and detached. On September 27, 2016, China Court Hearing Online began to work. The court hearings should be open to the public in order to ensure judicial justice. Till January 6, 2020, the courts at all levels have broadcast 6.27 million court hearings through the internet, and people in China have watched court hearings 21.8 billion times. This platform has formed a detailed court database. It will serve as the first-hand data for the study of China’s judicial system and become a valuable resource for the construction of the rule of law in China.Third, building the judgment document publicity platform. China’s courts have launched China Judgments Online through which valid judgment documents made by courts at all levels are publicized, excluding cases involving state secrets, juvenile delinquency, conclusion through mediation, divorce litigation or fostering of underage children. Till January 6, 2020, China Judgments Online has released more than 87 million copies of written judgments and garnered more than 39.1 billion visits. People in more than 210 countries and areas can use this platform. Many famous universities, such as Stanford University, Columbia University and so on, also can download the documents and do research on them. As a result, this platform has become the largest judgment publicity platform all over the world.Fourth, building the enforcement information publicity platform. China’s courts have launched China Enforcement Information Online through which parties concerned may conveniently inquire about the progress of enforcement cases, information about persons subject to enforcement in pending cases, and list of persons subject to enforcement. China Enforcement Information Online has publicized 57 million dishonest executors in aggregate.Fifth, strengthening the development of court websites and new media. The lessening of public reliance on information from the official media has had an immediate impact on judicial credibility. In order to ensure judicial credibility, more than 90 percent of the courts nationwide have established online portals where they constantly improve their functions and promptly update their contents. The SPC has enhanced the construction of its official website and opened the SPC official accounts on Sina Weibo, WeChat and news client application. It also established the ‘National Court Weibo Release Hall’ where more than 3,200 courts nationwide opened their official Weibo and WeChat accounts.3. Width and Depth of Judicial Transparency. — First, fully implementing case filing registration system to protect right to sue. As for the cases that must be accepted under the law, courts ensured that each case will be filed and each litigation will be adjudicated, with 95 percent of cases being registered and filed on site. For cases that do not meet the filing requirements, courts explained the reason and guided parties concerned to exercise their right to sue rationally. The open adjudication system is strictly implemented and all cases that must be heard in open sessions are heard in open sessions.Second, the Internet Plus litigation service system. China’s courts provide people with effective, convenient and efficient litigation and legal service by comprehensively employing technological means. The people’s courts at all levels have established their litigation service centers, online litigation service platforms, litigation service hotlines and lawyer service platforms, thereby creating an all-round and three-dimensional Internet Plus litigation service system and providing parties concerned and lawyers with convenient and efficient litigation services, ranging from case filing and adjudication to enforcement.Third, electronic courts and online courts. Some courts have even taken advantage of the digitalization to build ‘a new way of judicial transparency in the Internet Plus era’, to set up a platform for judicial transparency and a new and open judicial mechanism. We have explored the development of online courts, provided parties, lawyers and judges with 24-hour and cross-regional online service, and realized online case filing, online exchange of evidence and online court hearing. By doing so, China’s courts have saved litigants’ efforts in terms of information gathering, reducing litigants’ burden and enabling the public to gain an increasingly greater sense of benefit.Fourth, other ways of judicial transparency. The SPC promotes the publicity of judicial administrative affairs and regularly issues work reports, gazettes and white papers of adjudication work of China’s courts, besides continuously improving the press release system of China’s courts and promptly and accurately releasing judicial information, thereby enhancing people’s understanding of court work. China’s courts have been promoting openness in legal services and strengthening the development of litigation service centers. They actively provide parties concerned with one-stop, comprehensive and low-cost litigation service.C. Using Intelligent Services to Continue to Meet the Increasing Demand for JusticeWhat is the litigants’ definition of judicial fairness and what is the public opinion on equality and justice? We could follow the right value orientation of judicial transparency and ascertain the correct object and content of it. Theoretically, there is not an official definition of judicial fairness. If one tries to look it up in the most famous Chinese lexicon Cihai, the explanation would be justice, namely the just principle or just sense. For instance, upholding justice shows a moral recognition and positive review of behavioral and systematic rationality in the field of politics, economics, law, moral, etc. China’s courts combine cloud computing, big data, AI and other cutting-edge technology to promote the intelligent construction solidly.1. Big Data Management and Service Platform. — The SPC has established the big data management and service platform, which was founded in the year 2014. This platform automatically updates data related to case acceptance and conclusion of all courts nationwide every 5 minutes and averagely collects data of 70,000 to 80,000 cases on a daily basis. So far, it hosts information of almost 400 million cases, becoming the largest adjudication information database. The platform could provide courts at all levels nationwide with real time data of any new, logged, concluded and pending cases of any category of any court at any time. It provides comprehensive, timely, and accurate judicial big data services, providing judges with smart service applications, such as regulated support for judges on the adjudication and ruling of similar cases, recommendation of similar cases and analysis of related cases. The establishment of normal big data research and analysis mechanism provides social governance and macro control departments with judicial information and analysis report in respect of duty-related crimes, illegal fund raising, and private lending cases.2. The Visual Legal Eye Platform. — Until now, the people’s court in China has established a comprehensive information system relying on information development. Do these systems run well? Are the judges, the people and the court managers satisfied with these systems? In order to know this answer, the SPC has developed the visual legal eye platform to collect data, find the problems and resolve them. Through the visual legal eye platform, the courts could collect the basic data and use quantifiable technical means to fully display the major network infrastructure, application management, data management, information security, operation and maintenance of the operational status. This platform can produce the maintenance quality report monthly, in which the problems are put forward and suggestions are given. The courts at all levels shall, in accordance with the results of the reports, fully carry out the work of quality control, operation and maintenance to provide better service.3. Online Platforms for Registering Complaints. — The people’s court of China has established online platforms for registering complaints, sending letters and carrying out visits, along with an online video system to receive complaints and petitions, thereby shortening the distance between the people’s court and petitioners and clearing channels for complaints, letters, and visits.4. Promotion of In-depth Application of Outcomes of Information Technology. — The first is the Faxin platform. It provides comprehensive and convenient smart retrieval and push notification services to meet judges’ precise demands for laws, cases and professional knowledge when they are handling cases. The second is the smart adjudication system. It turns litigation materials into structured documents, smartly assisting judges in efficiently generating various legal instruments through data extraction and semantic analysis. The third is the hearing speech recognition system. The court hearing speech recognition system translates court hearing speech into text automatically, recording court hearings completely and quickly. It greatly reduces time needed for court hearing. The accuracy of the speech recognition system reaches 90 percent or above. The fourth is the national unified judicial chain platform system. Blockchain technology is under the process of maturation, and in order to strengthen the deep integration of blockchain technology and judicial work, and give full play to the role of blockchain in leaving traces, post-audit, preventing tampering, and security protection, the SPC is establishing a national unified judicial chain platform. D. The Establishment of Three Internet CourtsThe world we live in today is fast changing. The frontiers of technology are constantly extending. Technology affects nations, people, cultures and societies. The judiciary also must absorb and embrace this change. It must harness and employ the new ideas, techniques and resources to advance the chariot of justice. It can use these to reach out to more and more citizens in the most inexpensive and expeditious manner. We make good use of internet to establish three internet courts.Hangzhou Internet Court was founded on August 18, 2017, which is the first internet court in China and all over the world. As the first internet court, Hangzhou Internet Court is even further exploring pioneer in ‘trialing internet-related cases through the internet’. Without leaving home, if the parties of the cases click on the litigation platform of Hangzhou Internet Court, the court can provide litigation services that are as convenient as online shopping. Testimony, court hearings, adjudication, and the entire process of each link are online. The steps of the parties of the cases are recorded continuously and in real time, and the parties have zero time in transit and zero travel expenses to complete the lawsuit.Founded on September 9, 2018, Beijing Internet Court centrally governs the first-instance specific types of internet cases within the jurisdiction of Beijing. In accordance with the basic ideas of ‘online case heard online’, the court has built and used an online e-litigation platform with integrated processes for the purpose of efficient and convenient administration of the judiciary and improving the quality of trials. This will promote China’s strategy of becoming a powerful country in science and technology, as well as law-based governance of cyberspace.Established on September 28, 2018, Guangzhou Internet Court makes full use of big data, cloud computing, new technologies to found the smart trial platform in order to provide extremely simplified litigation services experience. The smart trial platform refers to common software such as WeChat and QQ. The parties of the cases do not need training, and they can operate it.In the context of deepening the reforms thoroughly, the establishment of the internet court pioneers a frontier of judicial transformation. This is a positive response made by law enforcement to adapt to changes in the information era; to undertake the judicial responsibility of overall implementing the strategy of governing state affairs under rule of law principles and the strategy of internet power, and meanwhile to cope with challenges for the information age as well. Its institution caters to litigation characteristics in the network age and will definitely further promote judicial efficiency and justice．IV. THE MAIN PROBLEMS AND RESOLUTION STRATEGIES OF CHINA’S SMART COURTIn pursuit of smart court’s development, Chinese courts are comprehensively employing technologies, such as cloud computing and big data, to fully explore the application of AI in judicial practice, carry out research on the development of AI system of smart court and promote technological innovation. The aim is to provide smart case handling means for judges to accumulate and share adjudication experience and smartly push judicial resources, besides providing court administrators with methodologies to understand the features and rules of adjudication and enforcement work so as to improve scientific decision-making. Moreover, the idea is to provide litigants with smart and predicable litigation services, provide channels to the public for accessing judicial information and supervising judicial process, and provide administrators of administrative affairs with decision making reference. However, there are still some problems which need to be resolved in the building of China’s smart court.A. Lack of a Unified System which Can Collect Data Produced from Different Courts’ SystemIn the old days, when technologies and cyberspace became emerging topic, many platforms have been developed by different courts, and have comparable function. They can monitor the case files and the court schedules, record the progress of each particular case, record the order or judgment in each case and help in preparing the template of court documents. However, each of such developed platforms has its own pros and cons. The difficulty for us to improve the court technologies to the next step is that these platforms cannot be integrated because they are unable to support function of each other. Data kept by one platform cannot be linked by the others.In order to resolve these problems, we appropriately plan and gradually develop technologies from a perspective of the judiciary authority as a whole and build the unified data platform to collect data from different systems. According to our plan, the goal of technologies developed in the court work should support data processing to provide guidance based on statistic in various perspectives, such as appropriate damages to be prescribed for the mediation purpose, crime zone in each jurisdiction, tendency of criminal offences and repeatedly committing offences.B. The Risks for the System Security in China’s CourtsSystem security is very important during the building of China’s smart court. At this point, we should keep in mind that we are standing in the light, while the attackers are in the dark and we cannot see them. They always develop the way to hack or attack our servers.As for this problem, the system must have reliable firewall and protection from the attack. We cannot stop improving our system to minimize the risk of such attack. Secondly, in the case where the protection is inadequate, we need to backup all data as frequently as possible. Otherwise, the attack can cause severe interruption in the court work. The data of case files are kept in the intranet server to ensure that it will not be attacked from the outside. In this respect, we classify level of the staff and require personal password for accessing the case file data. The authentication system is also used for accessing confidential information. Firewalls are installed into the main servers at the servers of SPC and servers of all courts in China. The most updated antivirus programs are also installed into the main servers and each computer used in all courts.C. Lack of the Infrastructure Resource and the Human Resource of the CourtsWe face the lack of the infrastructure resource and the human resource. Infrastructure resource is required to support the technologies used in the court. In fact, technologies are rapidly changed and developed. Not only maintenance of hardware and software used for such technologies, but continuous development are also required. Therefore, the application of information technology to the court work needs to have an appropriate work plan.In respect of human resource, the technologies developed for the court work cannot perfectly perform their function without people who understand technologies and have expertise on the system. We need more information technology personnel in our court work. But it is noteworthy that most of the information technology staff have no legal knowledge and have no background about the court procedure. The information technology officers, legal officers and judges therefore need to work together in improving the technologies for the court work.Currently, the users in the court do not want to use technologies in their work, which is another problem relating to China’s smart court. No matter how advanced the technologies or platforms are, if the users do not prefer to utilize them for the court work, these technologies would be useless. The big challenge is to deal with human behavior. We need to change mindset of the users from using familiar means to the new developed technologies. In addition, technologies should also be user-friendly. Otherwise, no one would prefer to use them causing them to become useless.In sum, based on lessons we have learned, they prove that the development of technologies and their implementation to the court work must be appropriately planned by the central authority and all features and environments of the court work should be taken into account. Furthermore, the plan should gradually be implemented step-by-step. Appropriate training for technology users and the appropriate method to change the mindset of our people to use the new technologies are also important. The knowledge of users can help reduce the need of information technology personnel. And finally, the appropriate protection and security must continuously be improved to ensure the trustworthiness of technologies.D. The Problems Produced during the Judicial Transparency of Chinese CourtsTransparency denotes openness and accountability in all areas of business. It is also known as one of the pillars of the democracy. Indeed, transparency stimulates a culture of openness within organization which is thought to have a positive effect of trust. Public expectation about access to information about all public agencies has changed dramatically, particularly as a result of exponential increases on internet use. The more transparent an organization is via its website or other means, the more it is willing to allow citizens to monitor its performance and to participate in its policy processes.Currently, to enhance the public credibility and judicial fairness, Chinese courts at all levels are making great efforts to improve judicial transparency and to ensure justice through transparency. The openness and transparency of judicial activities and improvement in adjudication administration and internal-external supervision mechanism have played an important role in promoting the unity of adjudication criteria and regulating the exercise of judges’ discretionary power while constantly improving adjudication quality and efficiency. Since justice is dependent on efficiency, China’s courts have enhanced trust and confidence of the people in justice. As a coin has two sides, judicial transparency also produces many issues that we should resolve.Information technology now has become an essential tool for modernizing the judiciary or judicial system. But we should bear in mind that it is only a tool, and if not used with skill and commitment, it may do harm to privacy protection of the parties and cause frustration to the people. How to balance the relationship between judicial transparency and the privacy protection of the parties? How to realize the in-depth application of achievements of judicial transparency? In the future, China’s courts should come to resolve these problems above. In response to these questions, China’s courts are actively exploring various avenues. In dealing with the relationship between judicial transparency and personal information protection, the courts will not only emphasize the principle of judicial transparency but also specify exception and exclusion clauses of judicial transparency, so as to strengthen the protection of personal information of the parties concerned. The courts can delete the names of criminal victims, and natural persons’ home addresses, contact methods, ID card numbers and corporate bank account from publicized judgment documents. In this way, the courts can balance the relationship between judicial transparency and protection of personal information to a certain extent, thereby preventing judicial transparency from imposing unnecessary adverse implications on personal lives. The judiciary, therefore, has to be ever more vigilant in protecting individual rights and reputations. The right to privacy must be rigorously guarded and it must be recognized that there are limits within which the right to information and expression can be exercised. We have started to hold different activities like judicial outreach and meet the judge program through which the judiciary makes it clear to the people about the administration of justice and our working modalities so that the gap between the judiciary and the people would not remain furthermore and it can add public confidence and credibility on the judiciary.V. THE FUTURE OF CHINA’S SMART COURTThe Chief Justice named ‘justice and efficiency’ as the ‘judicial theme of the 21st Century’ to the effect that promoting efficiency has become an overriding and everlasting objective in reformation outline plans of the people’s court. The building of China’s smart court can improve the work efficiency of the people’s court to ensure justice. In the future, China’s courts are comprehensively employing technologies to fully explore the application of AI in judicial practice, carry out research on the development of AI system of the smart court and promote technological innovation. The aim is to provide smart case handling means for judges to accumulate and share adjudication experience and smartly push judicial resources, to provide litigants with smart and predicable litigation services, to provide channels to the public for accessing judicial information and supervising judicial process, and to provide administrators of administrative affairs with decision-making reference. In the future, China’s smart court will develop in the following aspects.A. Focusing on the Construction of Artificial Intelligence SystemIntelligence is not only the fundamental characteristics of China’s smart court, but also the inevitable direction of the development of the Chinese Court Information 3.0. The AI system could provide the effective means for the trail and implementation, improving the convenient channels to ensure scientific nature of judicial decision-making. Only through the intelligent means, the systems could fully assist the judges to improve the quality of handling cases, showing the advantages of information service in serving the people, adjudication and enforcement, judicial management and integral justice.China’s courts will continue to develop the AI system to provide trial experience and judicial resources to judges, promoting the quality of the trial gradually. The courts can supply prediction pre-reference of economic and social development, suggestion for legislation and judicature to the government managers. In the future, a proper case management will wholly depend on information technology and will not be a viable proposition without it. More and more courts will use comprehensive case handling system, smart adjudication system, hearing speech recognition system and big data smart analysis system. Furthermore, China’s smart court will also enhance online management of all operations, full-process publicity under the law and provision of all-round smart services, thereby facilitating the conduct of all court operations in an interconnected, transparent and smart way.B. Promoting the Development and Application of Judicial Data ResourcesAI can make the most of big data on the internet. Big data is not only the key element of China’s Court Information 3.0, but also the basic resources of the court AI system of China’s smart court. Whether the data convergence is comprehensive and accurate or not and whether the development and utilization of data resources is good or not determine the level of information technology directly. With the increasing quantity of data resources and the improvement of data quality, big data analysis and applications will play an irreplaceable role in the trial of the people’s court.China’s courts should attach great importance to data management, improve the mechanism of data aggregation constantly, establish the standards of data, improve the quality of data continuously and expand the resources of data constantly to meet the requirements on data quality of judicial statistics, trial management, performance appraisal work and so on. China’s courts will strengthen the integration with various application systems, open up docking of applications between the people’s court judicial data and business applications, external collaboration, litigation services to meet the requirements of data sharing and business collaboration among different platforms, different networks, different courts and different departments. The courts will make good use of cloud computing, big data, AI and other cutting-edge information technology to improve the level of intelligent data services, to form a large judicial knowledge base and do big data analytics. It extracts and enriches rules for adjudication, develops and applies functions like prejudgment and attorney evaluation. In order to carry out the special research, the people’s court should strengthen the construction of the judicial data research institute, give full play to the leading role for the judges and the masses to provide intelligent support and scientific reference for party committees and governments at all levels.C. Making Good Use of Blockchain in the Judicial WorkSince the beginning of the new century, the rapid development of science, technology and information networks has brought great convenience to human life, leading us to pursue a better quality of life. However, at the same time, the development of informatization and technology has also led to many unprecedented disputes, which continue to pour into the court.The emergence and popularity of bitcoin has enabled the underlying blockchain technology that will support its operation to enter the public’s field of vision. With the continuous development and improvement of blockchain technology, coupled with the construction of blockchain’s platforms such as Ethereum, the blockchain began to shift from the digital currency to the smart contract. This shift has not only broadened the prospects of the blockchain, but brought a certain impact on the traditional legal system.During the application of the Judicial Chain Platform to the whole country, it mainly provides unified certificate storage and verification services for three types of data: high reliability data, high credibility information data, and high risk operation data.1. Certificate of High Reliability Data. — In the process of data storage and data transfer, it provides certificate verification services for services that have high requirements for the reliability of the data itself, and provides support for data tamper resistance. High reliability data includes internet electronic litigation evidence, micro-court litigation evidence, and litigation center electronic litigation materials and other multi-source litigation evidence. Short-message service inspection, WeChat service inspection, online announcement service, mail service inspection, and offline delivery multi-channel receipt receipts, such as signed signatures, are verified.2. Certificate of High Credibility Information Data. — This platform can provide legal documents, notices, investigation orders and other people’s courts with high credibility information deposit verification services to litigants and social organizations to provide support for judicial credibility. High credibility information includes the case registration notice, notice of hearing, mediation, final verdict, lawyer’s investigation order, breach of trustee execution, restricted high consumption list and other information of the certificate verification.3. Certificate of High Risk Operation Data. — This platform can provides certificate verification services for related user operations that require strict management of functional permissions during the use of information systems, providing support for the safe operation of information systems and normalized audits. High risk operation, which includes online dossier review, enforcement investigation and control, case payment receipts and payments, and status information modification after the case is closed, shall be documented and verified.D. Improving the Capacity in Serving Judicial Management and Integral JusticeThe smart court of the future will be based on satisfying judicial needs and improving services, while accurately implementing the requirements of serving the people, adjudication and enforcement, judicial management and integral justice. Firstly, it shall continuously meet the increasingly diversified judicial needs of the people by employing information technology means, such as judicial transparency, litigation services and legal publicity. Secondly, it shall continuously improve adjudication and enforcement by further strengthening information technology means for adjudication, enforcement, petitions, letter and visits, and adjudication management. Thirdly, it shall pragmatically improve scientific judicial administration through informatization of administrative affairs, personnel administration and decision-making support. Fourthly, it shall further regulate judicial practice through carrying out information technology development of full-process recording, supervision and advice, risk pre-warning, and dynamic follow-up.We will improve our capacity in serving judicial management and integral justice, while consolidating remarkable results in serving the people, adjudication and enforcement. We should change the previous practice of ‘collecting case information resources from the subordinate courts’ to ‘pushing notifications from the superintendent courts’ by optimizing functions of both superintendent and subordinate courts. China’s smart courts shall build an ‘institutional cage’ and ‘data cage’ to resolutely prevent judicial corruption and promote judicial integrity, so as to serve integral justice from the height of governing the Party in an overall and stringent way and ruling the country under the law by combining institutional development, technological innovation and use of information technology means. Chinese courts have made great efforts in reducing the room for black box operation, enabling the people to feel justice in the judicial process. By doing so, Chinese courts have enhanced trust and confidence of the people in justice. The smart court will provide judicial services according to the needs of judges, litigants, administrative authorities and the public on issue-oriented basis and offsetting its disadvantages. Chinese courts promoted judicial transparency and supervised judges to regulate their judicial act and behavior while maintaining a prudent and delicate work style and serious and responsible attitude. They promoted efficiency and integrity of judicial justice and effectively deterred and prevented judicial corruption. It will also enhance online management of all operations, full-process publicity under the law and provision of all-round smart services, thereby facilitating the conduct of all court operations in an interconnected, transparent and smart environment.The author is not one of those who regard technology as a magic wand which can be used to waive away all problems, but regards it as a tool which will smooth our path and speed our progress. The need for a competent judge of the past will not by any means be obviated but the competent judge of today will have to be proficient in the skills of the internet era to navigate the judicial ship to a safe future.With the advent of a new round of technological reforms centering on information technology, the internet has increasingly become a pioneering force for innovation-driven development. It not only profoundly changes people’s way of production and living, but also enables courts of all countries to promote judicial work via high technology. According to an ancient Chinese saying, ‘A single feather does not make a bird fly high, while a single strong hoof does not make a horse run fast’. Chinese courts will continue to explore new paths of the building of China’s smart courts.The aim of China’s smart courts is to improve working efficiency, improve the quality of judicial work, ensure the trial process, public trial and perform the work. Court information service should meet the demand of people’s diversified judicial reality needs, providing convenience for the people of litigation and guidance. At the same time, the court informatization construction in promoting the judicial public, safeguarding judicial justice, integrity, enhancing judicial credibility is also fruitful.The rule of law, as the idea and principle underlying the governance of society, is a product of the progress of human civilization. Over the centuries since early modern times, it has developed multi-layered systems and structures across the world. The development of the rule of law in each country is dependent on the national conditions, while the scope and method of information construction demonstrate unique features of each country to a large extent. The building of China’s smart courts not only ensures judicial justice and judicial modernization, but also contributes Chinese wisdom and approach to the world. Through efforts, the courts of all countries in the world can promote the creation of a stable, fair, transparent and predicable environment of rule of law and employ information technology to provide effective judicial service and protection for the common prosperity of all countries.
