IX. Enhancing the Information Technology Capacity of Courts

The information construction is of fundamental, comprehensive and strategic importance to the work of the people’s courts. For adapting to the new challenges under the era of “internet +”, the SPC has been making great efforts to advance the information construction 3.0 of the people’s courts and improve the information infrastructure in reliance of big data, and realize overall coverage, mobile internet, cross-field fusion, in-depth application, transparency and convenience, and security and controllability of all types of information.

To strengthen the information infrastructure construction. Under the unified guidance of the SPC, the comprehensive network connection, overall data coverage and provision of complete business has been realized among 3,512 people’s courts across China. There are 18,000 technology courts in China which “record every trial” for major cases. There are 2,160 or more sets of long-distance interrogation systems so that long-distance interrogation could be done between the people’s courts of superior level and the people’s courts of inferior level, and between the people’s courts and the detention houses. The SPC has set up point-to-point connection with 6 units such as the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Security, headquarter-to-headquarter connection with more than 20 financial institutions and aviation and railway departments. 23 high people's courts have set up point-to-point or headquarter-to-headquarter connection with relevant departments. As such, information reporting and submission, information sharing, enforcement check and control and credit punishment have achieved preliminary collaboration (between the people’s courts and other departments).

To improve the case information management system. 99% of the people’s courts in China have established case information management systems so as to circulate the information of the main process of adjudication activities online and conduct digital management of case files. Those systems also provide trial supporting intelligent services for judges, for instance online search for laws and regulations, case guidance, sentencing reference, one-click type-setting and intelligent error-correction. The unification of adjudication standards has been enhanced thereby. People’s courts use the information system to provide early warning to the trial limit, to monitor the case-handling process, to evaluate the case-handling risks, and to inspect court hearing acts, which help with the supervision and restriction over the adjudicative powers and enforcement powers. Courts in Beijing and Shanghai, etc. have combined personnel information and adjudication information of judges, in order to promote the performance appraisal of judges in a personalized and scientific way.

To realize the overall coverage of case information of all courts in China. The SPC has built an information centralized control management centre, whereby real-time live broadcasting of court hearing in four-level courts in China could be watched, communication and consulting with each other could be allowed, and data could be managed in a unified way. The SPC has also set up a data centralized management platform of people’s courts to store, demonstrate, exchange and classify Chinese courts information, through which the SPC could achieve real-time observation, dispatch and deploy the work of all Chinese courts. This platform will update the data of all Chinese courts every 5 minutes and has already collected more than 63 million case information and 34 million judgment documents in the recent 4 years, with a daily increase of 50,000 to 60,000 cases. It covers all case data, as all data of Chinese courts in terms of newly accepted cases, existing archived cases, closed cases and pending cases will be automatically generated and sent to the SPC. By establishing the mechanism of analyzing trial quality and efficiency, hot topics, specific type of cases, the SPC could learn about the trial situation and trial quality and efficiency of all Chinese courts in a real-time and dynamic way. 17 high people’s courts have set up information management centers and data centralized management platforms and utilized data to conduct dynamic analysis and provide judicial commendations to the local economic and social development.

To push the construction of digital courts. People’s courts at various levels innovate litigation service models and explore constructing “digital courts” which handle litigation business via internet, turning “people running” into “data running”. Courts in Jilin connect the working platform of judges to the internet. This “digital court” supports, support online case filing, evidence obtaining, trial, cross-examination, enforcement and complaint in an all-dimensional, whole-process and online way, integrate online and offline resources and promote the revolution of adjudicative manner. In May, 2015, Zhejiang High People’s Court designated Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court, Xihu Primary People’s Court, Binjiang Primary People’s Court and Yuhang Primary People’s Court as the e-commerce online pilot courts to respectively try internet finance and online payment disputes, copyright infringement disputes, and online transaction disputes and their appellate cases. All litigation stages, including institution of complaints, mediation, case-filing (objection to jurisdiction), testification, cross-examination, court session and judgment rendering, have put online, breaking the space boundaries.