Development of China's Court Informatization in 2016 and Prospect for 2017

Rule of Law Index Innovation Project Team,

Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Abstract: Court informatization is an important way to promote justice for the people, judicial justice, judicial transparency and judicial democracy, a key element of trial system modernization, and a crucial guarantee for the people to truly feel fairness and justice in judicial cases. In 2016, the “Smart Court” program was incorporated in the national informatization strategy and plan and made remarkable progress thanks to the active response and innovative practices of courts at all levels. The full coverage of a dedicated court network laid a solid foundation for online handling of all court businesses; the establishment of platforms for judicial disclosureand litigation service accelerated the disclosure of full-process trial and enforcement factors according to law; and primary achievements were made in providing intelligent services for judges, litigation participants, the public, and government departments. Informatization endowed the work of people's courts with new trends and features, such as convenient service, intelligent trial, efficient enforcement, scientific management, normalized disclosure and accurate decision. This laid a solid foundation for the overall establishment of “Smart Court” in 2017. However, although court informatization has made some progress, its application varies greatly from one place to another, and the general situation cannot meet the people's rising judicial demand. Therefore, further improvements are in urgent need.

Keywords: Court informatization; judicial big data; Smart Court; Internet Plus

In the Information Age, emerging network technologies such as big data, cloud computing and Internet of Things are reshaping our production and life in every aspect, and building of smart cities and a smart society is in full swing. The national big data strategy provides a vast background for the court informatization program. The 18thNational Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) made “informatization” one path of the new version of Four Modernizations with Chinese characteristics (new model of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization), and made “considerable improvement of informatization” a major symbol of comprehensively completing the building of a moderately prosperous society. The third, fourth and fifth plenary session of the 18thCentral Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) successively proposed to “build unified platforms of basic data such as housing and credit information of the whole society, and promote information sharing among different departments”;“build an open, dynamic, transparent and people-friendly judicial mechanism in sunshine”; and carry out the “Strengthening the Nation through Network strategy, Internet Plus action plan and national big data strategy”. In many of his speeches, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of informatization and pointed out that “there is no modernization without informatization”, and “in face of the wave of informatization, we can only get a headstart in development if we actively seize the commanding height”. The Supreme People's Court stressed many times that comprehensively deepening the judicial reform and promoting informatization are two profound selfrevolutions of the people's court system. They are the only way to modernize our trial system and capability, just as two wheels and two wings if the people's judicial development is compared to a cart or a bird. Informatization of people's court is an important way to promote justice for the people, judicial justice, judicial transparency and judicial democracy, a key element of the modernization of trial system and capability, and a crucial guarantee for the people to truly feel fairness and justice in every judicial case.

On the basis of comprehensively completing the people's court informatization 2.0 edition that is characterized by connectivity, people's courts at all levels strongly pushed the transformation and upgrade of informatization in 2016. The Five-year Development Plan for People's Court Informatization(2016-2020)set 55 key tasks in the four categories of strengthening top-level design, accelerating system establishment, intensifying guarantee system and enhancing effect of application. In light of those tasks, people's courts at all levels worked faster to set up the data-centered people's court informatization 3.0 edition, and made considerable progress thanks to the active response and innovative practices of all participants.

Full network coverage laid a solid foundation for handling all court businesses online. All the 3,520 courts and 9,277 people's tribunals and maritime dispatched tribunals across the country were covered in the dedicated court network, so all court police in the country could handle cases, work, study and communicate “in the same net”. Some courts already realized synchronous electronization of case files and uploaded them to the system, creating necessary conditions, both in management approach and technical guarantee, for judges to handle cases online and trial managers to conduct targeted supervision online. A number of unified application systems covering all courts nationwide came online, including the case process information management system, providing the experience and examples for exerting the dominant role of the Supreme People's Court, pulling together advantageous forces nationwide and urging court police at all levels to work online. A group of cross-network judicial and administrative systems, represented by the “headquarter-to-headquarter” enforcement investigation and control system of the Supreme People's Court, realized cross-sector application and seamless integration of information systems, and better met the urgent demand of court police to work online. Some local courts actively promoted the integrated online data system for traffic disputes, multiple remote court trial system of public security organs, procuratorial organs and people's courts, and system of centralized management of properties involved in criminal lawsuits. This realized information sharing and business coordination with relevant departments and became the extension of the all-round online business handling of people's courts. The Fayan (eye of law) platform, a visualized operation and maintenance management system of the Supreme People's Court, came online, providing a new means for the online supervision and evaluation of the national court information system and the continuous improvement of the effect of informatization.

Establishment of platforms for judicial disclosureand litigation service accelerated the disclosure of full-process trial and enforcement factors according to law. The China Judgements Online website became an important window that caught extensive attention at home and abroad and that demonstrated the rule of law in China. Following the three judicial disclosureplatforms that disclose judicial process information, judgement documents and enforcement information, tingshen.court.gov.cn, or China Court Trial Online, a website that opens court trials in China, came online. It is the new national platform of judicial disclosurethat enables the public to more directly and vividly feel the open and transparent process at courts of all levels. Information Website of National Bankrupt Enterprises' Recombination Cases came online and fully publicized information about bankrupt enterprises, not only further illustrating the concept of justice in sunshine, but also providing a new platform to serve the supply-side structural reform. New ways of electronic lawsuits such as e-court and online tribunal were promoted in a larger scope, realizing immediate communication, instant interaction and free sharing of judicial services and making the public feel more strongly the considerable progress on judicial transparency. The informatized lawsuit service hall at courts of all levels with a coverage rate of 98.9% became an important window of judicial transparency in people's courts, and better reflected the fundamental purport of “justice for the people”. Making full use of the Internet Plus concept, courts in all places set up online dispute settlement mechanisms featuring diverse functions, resource integration and open platform, which showed the public the court police's passion and enthusiasm for solving social conflicts and disputes. Summarizing the successful experience of courts in various places, the Supreme People's Court organized the development of a national unified people's juror system, which was a new measure to help reform the people's juror system and promote judicial transparency.

Primary achievements were made in providing intelligent services for judges, litigation participants, and government departments. A group of intelligent systems that assist in the handling of cases, represented by the Smart Trial system, came online and were promoted, helping judges to use e-files, assisting in the generation of judgement documents, and pushing similar cases accurately across the board. This overcame the long-standing problem that informatization is weak in serving trials and the handling of cases, and blazed a new trail for the in-depth application of e-files and improving the quality and efficiency of trials. The trial speech recognition and transcription system was successfully promoted in many places nationwide, which shortened the time of trial, ensured the completeness of trial record, and offered an important way to improve trial quality and efficiency using smart technology. The automatic trial routing inspection system, which was installed in some local courts, supported judicial management personnel to efficiently inspect and supervise court trial discipline within their jurisdiction, adding a powerful instrument to preserve judicial image and credibility. In some local courts, judgement document big data analysis system was used to help judges to timely discover defects in the verdict, such as logical mistakes, omission of litigant claims, and wrong quote of legal provisions, offering another useful tool to improve the quality of judgement documents and preserve judicial credibility. The centralized data management platform of the Supreme People's Court was successfully upgraded to be a big data management and service platform, which realized real-time gathering, point-to-point match between data and case, coordination and sharing, dynamic exchange, seamless connectivity and in-depth application. It gathered over 96 million pieces of case data from all courts across the country, which could support courts at all levels in making real-time analysis and judgement. It also automatically generated 136 judicial statistical statements, helping courts at all levels to bid farewell to the time of manual statistics. A normalized big data study and analysis mechanism was formed, providing data-based and intelligent service approaches for the study of judicial enforcement, judicial administration and state governance.

Based on efforts in the past year, the Smart Court system featured by wide network coverage, transparency and intelligence has taken primary shape and taken root in courts all over the country. It has pushed the work of people's courts in the direction of convenient service, intelligent trial, efficient enforcement, scientific management, normalized disclosureand accurate decision, and laid a solid foundation for the overall establishment of Smart Court across the country in 2017.