VII. Prospect for 2017

Thanks to the development of information technology, the people's court informatization program has made some achievements, but problems exist from place to place, and the overall informatization level lags far behind people's rising judicial needs. It's not easy to catch up with the Internet technology that develops by leaps and bounds every single day and make the court's work benefit from technological progress simultaneously, and court informatization is a long-term and systematic project. To meet the request by the Supreme People's Court to strongly promote “Internet Plus Litigation Services”, build the people's court informatization 3.0 edition, and create more benefits for the people, the people's court at all levels need to make efforts in the following aspects.

i. Making work arrangements in a holistic way and avoiding conflicts

At present, some overall problems in court informatization deserve close attention. For example, in some areas, the data sharing and exchange system between courts of different levels, between court and other units, and between different information systems hasn't been fully connected, the websites of different courts or different judicial service platforms follow different technical standards, and applications are tedious and complicated. Platforms are scattered and sometimes repeated, making it inconvenient for the public to find information quickly and accurately. Some courts have two websites operating at the same time, the standards for their division of function are unclear, and the phenomenon of multiple departments giving orders about the same matter creates chaos. There is no legal support for applications such as electronic delivery, etc. All these problems point to one cause-the lack of top-level design makes it hard to standardize work.

The Five-year Development Plan for People's Court Informatization (2016-2020) set the task of intensifying top-level design. According to this plan, all areas should design the overall technical architecture and demonstrate their plan for court informatization in the jurisdiction. Centered on the “Tianping Project”, they should work out the plans for system construction, guarantee system and efficiency improvement, support system R&D, data management and resource service, and ensure the connectivity, information sharing and business coordination between different systems, between courts and between the court and external units. The plan by the Supreme People's Court reflects the emphasis on top-level design, and courts at all levels should put this spirit into practice when making work arrangements for informatization, with a view to unifying the architecture and plan for court informatization in their jurisdiction. In this way, the system will be scientific and orderly in general, and overlapped constructions, waste of resources and various conflicts will be avoided.

This working philosophy of making overall arrangements beforehand has yielded concrete results in some regions. For instance, in light of the current situation that several platforms may be overlapped and a judge may have to input the same information and upload the same documents repeatedly on several platforms, the Zibo Intermediate People's Court in Shandong Province made strenuous efforts to integrate information from courts of two levels in the city, and set up multiple interface platforms. As a result, the judicial information system, tech-court system, judicial committee system and e-file system that are of different types and standards are integrated both laterally and longitudinally. After information is input once, it can be shared by all systems, thus lightening the judge's workload and integrating information resources.

ii. Filling legal gaps and providing legal basis

The integration of Internet technology with court work is an objective fact and is proceeding in depth, but relevant laws haven't been formulated yet. When promoting informatization, the court sometimes has to prove the legitimacy of certain technical means, or the absence of specific laws and regulations usually creates the awkward situation that there is no law to abide by on such occasions. For instance, can electronic litigation materials and paper materials substitute each other? How are they similar and different in legal force? These are questions we have to answer in developing Internet-based litigation, and the state needs to issue regulations to explain those questions in order to standardize and regulate online litigation services. Existing laws and regulations in China only contain sporadic provisions on e-files and e-archives, but they are not sufficient and definite enough, and the e-file encryption technology and the confirmation of responsibility for the leak of them are not even officially incorporated in the legal system. Therefore, the existing e-files and e-archives at courts, when being presented as legal evidence, can only be taken as ancillary tools that are much inferior to traditional paper files in legal force. This impedes the informatization process, and, because of that, relevant legislation must be strengthened in 2017 and for a long time afterwards.

iii. Fostering Internet thinking and awareness

Limited by education, background, age and other factors, some judges are unfamiliar with Internet technology. Their knowledge structure is outdated, and their education did not include contents like computer and network, so they only know a smattering of Internet and informatization and have not formed Internet thinking yet. Therefore, they cannot grasp the skills required by informatization in a short term, and have to start from scratch even with the most basic operation system. Some judges even began to resist informatization and refused to accept new knowledge and skills. There are judges whose ability is limited to simple operations like typing and printing. Some of them do not even know how to find laws and regulations in the system, produce electronic tables or send and receive emails, not only wasting online resources, but also resulting in low work efficiency. There are also judges who do not fully realize the necessity and importance of court informatization. Their understanding of this work is shallow and superficial, and they do not think high and new technologies are really necessary for the court since, according to them, cases were handled just as well in the long years without the Internet. Therefore, they are not aware how fast the Internet is developing, how extensively it is used, how pervasive it has become, and how strongly it influences court work, and the lack of recognition of “Internet Plus” leads them to resist this program at work. Moreover, in the early period of informatization, a large number of data needed to be input urgently, and the online office system was not practical and user-friendly enough. Instead of lightening the workload of judges, it actually increased their workload in this period, which was another reason why judges were resistant to online work.

Removing the judge's mental resistance to the Internet and elevating their understanding and acceptance of “Internet Plus court work” are crucial for promoting court informatization. Court cadres and policemen should realize that Internet technology is not something inscrutable or a technology exclusive to computer experts. It is a highly practical technology that has penetrated everyone's life and work. In today's world, grasping network technology is not only a necessary skill for doing a good job, but is also a basic requirement to enjoy a good life. In this connection, the practice of Shandong courts provided a beneficial reference for the national court system. The Shandong High People's Court intensified organizational leadership, gave full play to leader's exemplary role in studying information technology, and worked hard to unify the thoughts and understanding of informatization of all court cadres and policemen in the Province. They adopted innovative ways and methods, started with network technology common in daily life, and insisted on applying what they learnt. Starting with basic subjects like WeChat, Weibo, car-hailing APP and network language, court cadres and policemen have learnt how to use APP to call taxi, book tickets, order meals, buy things, make appointments with doctors and chat with friends, and personally felt the extensive application of information and network technology in daily life and the various conveniences they brought to people. The process of actual operation was also the process of studying, understanding and applying Internet technology and forming Internet thinking. This approach of starting with everyday applications blazed a new trail of changing the court police's mind and removing their mental resistance to informatization and is worth promotion.

Another important reason why it is hard to promote court informatization is that some people are unfamiliar with Internet technology. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the 38th China Internet Development Statistical Report in July 2016, which revealed that Internet penetration rate in urban areas is 35.6 percentage points higher than in rural areas, indicating a wide urban-rural gap. The lack of Internet knowledge and the scarce awareness of it lead to the weak demand for Internet use, which is the main reason why rural residents do not get online. According to a survey, among the main reasons why rural residents do not get online, “don't understand computer/network” accounts for 68%, followed by “too old/too young” (14.8%) and “no need/not interested” (10.9%). The insufficient demand impeded the informatization of grassroots courts that serve rural residents. Their advanced equipment and office system cannot be fully used, various devices are left idle, technologies become backward, informatization stays on the surface, and the traditional resource-intensive but low-efficiency work style remains dominant. To change this situation, the people's courts and other departments should work together to popularize Internet knowledge and technology in rural areas, which will be a long-term and systematic project. The people's courts should enhance publicity in light of rural residents' judicial needs, and popularize Internet knowledge and legal knowledge in the countryside when necessary, to let rural residents personally feel the superiority of judicial services in the Internet age through true cases. They should also promote relevant measures and judicial services that better suit regional characteristics and are closer to rural residents' life, and guide those nonInternet-users to change their ideas and use the Internet to better exercise their right of action.

iv. Realizing balanced development by promoting cloud technology

In recent years, the bandwidth of the dedicated court network has been expanded, all courts can access the Internet, provincial courts built unified data exchange platform between their dedicated network and the Internet, and data on the dedicated court network in each province are basically exported through a unified channel. However, the development of Internet technology is unbalanced from region to region.

The capital input in Internet facilities and level of technological popularization vary greatly among courts in different regions, online work conditions differ wildly between those courts in economically developed provinces (coastal areas in eastern China) and those in economically underdeveloped ones (in central and western China) and between courts in urban and rural areas, and the idleness and waste of digital resources in some areas exists side by side with the scarcity of resources in others. Under such circumstances, it is hard to comprehensively meet the diverse judicial needs of people in different regions.

Cloud technology can balance the allocation of data resources among different regions and physical devices. In economically developed areas that are able to provide sufficient hardware equipment and have powerful data calculating capability, all data will be concentrated on the cloud to form a data pool. Other areas can share resources in that pool through the cloud device without deploying the costly hardware equipment themselves, thus raising the efficiency of data utilization while reducing initial investment. Going forward, it is necessary to promote cloud technology more strongly to realize regional balance in informatization development.

v. Integrating judicial work with technology and forming synergy

While developing Internet Plus litigation services, the courts generally have two prominent problems. First, they pay more attention to technology than business. Take the construction of court website for example. Some courts rely on technical personnel to build and maintain their websites, so even common legal mistakes cannot be identified in a timely manner. As the people who build and maintain the website do not know the process of court business, concerned parties or general public are unable to contact the judge smoothly through the website when they try to seek judicial services online, so the socalled informatization cannot meet people's judicial needs. Second, they pay more attention to business than effect. On some websites, service windows are on the edge or in the corner of the homepage and are uneasy to find, website is unusable, homepage items are not updated timely, search engine is backward, homepage links are unusable, attachments cannot be downloaded, and there are misspellings on the webpage. These two problems also exist in the construction of judge's online office system. Court employees are unable to build the system on their own, but outsourcing of design, establishment and maintenance services will lead to impracticality of the office system and its mismatch with judicial business. In the end, it cannot provide technical support for judicial work, but will increase the workload of front-line judges.

Business and technology are the two key parts of people's court informatization. Only when they are integrated and coordinated can they truly assist in judicial work. To do that, the basis and key is a team of talents. We must foster a team well-versed in judicial business and big data in order to integrate business with big data and technology to the largest extent and make sure the court website, litigation service center and online office system all operate smoothly. We should make a point of selecting excellent talents from people who have a certain amount of legal knowledge, understand judicial business and are familiar with big data analysis to replenish the informatization team of both managerial and technical talents.

We should also appropriately resort to external resources to save cost, especially inviting outside experts to provide technical consulting to save the court both time and energy in informatization.

vi. Strengthening judicial transparency and preserving judicial justice

Under the push of the Supreme People's Court, the judicial disclosure platform of Chinese courts progressed at a fast pace. The Supreme People's Court launched three disclosure platforms-judicial process, judgement documents and enforcement information-in 2013 and set up its Weibo and WeChat official accounts. Local courts also established websites, judicial disclosure platform, online litigation service center and 12368 litigation service hotline one after another. But in general, the efforts of judicial disclosure by Chinese courts have a string of problems, such as platform repetition, low information accuracy, fragmented information disclosure, paid access to court bulletin, initial stage of data disclosure, and low transparency of judicial reform. Take “fragmented information disclosure” for instance. For many courts, information disclosure simply means uploading judicial information online. They put all information under the item of “latest news” without classifying important judicial information or setting up specific items. This makes it hard for the public to obtain the information they need because there is no specific items to guide them, and a lot of judicial information is submerged in the multitudes of news, undermining the effect of judicial disclosure.

These problems indicate that at present, the judicial transparency campaign in China is not public-oriented. The contents that are disclosed and the way of disclosure are decided to facilitate court work, the judicial organ controls the initiative and the public is in a position of passive acceptance. This poweroriented mechanism will limit judicial transparency in breadth and depth. In essence, judicial transparency does not only concern how judicial power is exercised. More importantly, it is an important way to guarantee the legal rights and interests of citizens. To deepen judicial transparency in the future, we, bearing in mind that it is a civil right, must reshape the institution and make top-level design in light of public needs, and shift from power-oriented to right-oriented transparency.

First, we must be oriented by user needs, meet their demand for convenient acquisition of accurate information, build intensive judicial disclosure platforms, and lower the cost of judicial transparency. To that end, we must unify website functions, integrate such functions as news and publicity, judicial disclosure and litigation service on the e-government website, and make the website a multi-dimension, all-round, one-stop and interactive one integrating the functions of information disclosure, publicity, service and interaction. We will build e-government website in local areas shared by three levels of courts to facilitate the public in finding all information in local courts. Links to national judicial disclosure platforms should be provided on the local website, so that the public, when visiting the website of local court, can also access judicial information nationwide.

Second, we must give up the idea of making profits from public information. The right-oriented judicial transparency means that judicial information essentially belongs to the people. It is not exclusive information of the court, and its disclosure is to realize the citizens' right to know and to supervise, so no fee shall be charged except the cost of production. Information that should be disclosed by the court proactively, such as bulletin, white paper and special work report, should be put online free of charge. The court shall not take it as proprietary property and sell it for profits.

At last, we should establish judicial big data shared by all. In the national big data strategy, judicial big data, either in terms of quantity or quality, is a bonanza for improving the capability of state governance. To maximize their effect, we have to continue to deepen judicial transparency, improve its efficiency and quality through informatization, and make sure the data are accurate, truthful, interconnected, and shared by the whole society.

vii. Stressing cyber security and ensuring independence and controllability

Information security is a red line for informatization. As the new round of information revolution impacts and reshapes national competition, economic operation, social development and people's life more quickly and comprehensively, online information security has evolved from a niche technical issue in a specific field to be a universal strategic issue that concerns national security, corporate competition and immediate interests of the general public. In recent years, information technology has created many benefits for the people, but problems arising from inadequate information security safeguard are getting increasingly conspicuous, and crimes of violating the information security of individuals, enterprises and public institutions are growing in number year by year. President Xi Jinping called for efforts to “rigorously prevent online crimes, especially new types of online crimes, and safeguard people's interests and social harmony and stability.” It is stated in Several Opinions of the State Council on Strongly Promoting Informatization and Safeguarding Information Security (GF [2012] No.23) that there are problems in China's informatization and information security safeguard that need to be solved urgently. Construction of broadband information infrastructure lags

farther behind that in developed countries, government information sharing and business coordination are of a low level, and core technologies have to be imported. The arrangement of information security work isn't strategic, holistic and coordinated enough, the capability of protecting important information systems and basic information networks is weak, and technological applications like mobile Internet pose serious challenges to information security.

Cyber security and informatization are inseparable. Security is the precondition for development and development is the guarantee for security. They should be promoted synchronously. Courts of all levels should keep information security and protection firmly in mind, continuously intensify overall security management in the process of informatization development and application, and ensure capital input. They should also introduce advanced technologies and products independently developed by China with IPR, and establish the judicial data disaster recovery system as prevention, so as to ensure the independence, controllability and secure development of judicial big data.

viii. Achieving full coverage and elaborate services

The effect of “Internet Plus litigation service” is evident to all, but court informatization still needs to be perfected in details. For example, the links serving judges in case handling are not smoothly connected, or the system is roughly designed, requiring further refinement. Through a series of labeling management, ranging from registration and classification of concerned parties' appeals to automatic case allocation and transfer by the system, we can provide intelligent support and services for the court in charge and its departments in investigation and handling, including accurate laws and regulations, document template, online approval, deadline reminding, e-file, e-stamp, and case pushing. Information input at some courts is inaccurate. Take node information about case for instance. Mistakes are unavoidable in manual input, which leads to inaccurate node information, and if the concerned parties do not know the case progress timely and accurately, their right to know is impaired, which may even damage their substantive rights. Therefore, we must further promote online case handling and synchronous generation of e-files, and avoid complexity and human error caused by data input afterwards. We should also optimize the office system and enhance the function of logical self-examination and correction of node information.

Internet technology also facilitates the people in filing suits at the nearest location. In areas with sound conditions, people's courts can cooperate and reshape the litigation service process, and unify the litigation service information system based on the online platform. This will break the traditional limitation of region and object in litigation service, eliminate the differentiation between cases from the local court and other courts, and put in place a new litigation service model whereby local cases and cross-region cases are “treated equally according to the same standards”.