China's top court held a symposium on February 23 focused on speeding up the pace of smart court construction, and promoting modernization of the judicial system and judicial ability. 

The Supreme People's Court of China held a symposium on smart court construction on February 23, 2017 in Beijing. [Photo by Sun Ruofeng/People's Court Daily]

Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court, said people's courts of various levels should be centered on problem solving and public demands, and make full use of opportunities to progress.

People’s courts of various levels should promote justice for the people, and "let the people feel fairness and justice in each judicial case," according to Zhou. 

At the symposium, experts of the SPC and Li Lin, director of the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, offered their suggestions on how to improve court informatization and push forward the construction of smart courts.

Zhou pointed out that informatization construction has played a key role in modernizing the judicial system and judicial capacity. Significant results have been obtained over the past few years. 

Smart court construction is taking shape, said Zhou, adding that great achievements have been made in three areas: working online, judicial publicity and comprehensive intelligent services.

Nationally, 3,520 courts, 9,239 people's tribunals and 38 maritime detached tribunals have achieved connectivity, work support, data gathering and safety supervision, among others steps forward, through the court network.

The SPC has set up three important platforms -- the judicial case research institute, the judicial big data research institute, and the digital library -- to effectively promote the development and application of judicial big data.

Smart courts have become an important component of people's courts.

Court informatization is an important part of national informatization, noted Zhou, adding that speeding up the construction of smart courts is necessary to maintain social stability, promote social fairness and justice, and ensure the people can live and work in peace and contentment.

Artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of things are developing rapidly, and reshaping social behavior and people's lives. In this context, court informatization construction is a historic technological opportunity.

Zhou ordered courts to work in common to combine informationization construction and judicial reform.

Judicial artificial intelligence can help people better understand laws and regulations, popularize legal knowledge, and facilitate the construction of China's rule of law, said Zhou.

It should be well developed, and feature integrated technology, such as cloud computing and big data. It should contribute to an intelligent review system, and thus inject new energy into the modernization of the judicial system, said Zhou.

Zhou stressed that there's a still a long way to go before achieving smart court construction, and reaching that goal will require the power and wisdom of people from all walks of life.