I. Convenient Service

One of the goals of people's court informatization is to remake the litigation service process, promote online handling of various litigation matters, and integrate online consulting, booking, file registration, fee payment, material transmission, and even online file review, mediation, court session, award and application for enforcement, so as to facilitate the public in participating in litigation. Meanwhile, the full employment of mobile internet technology has created more mobile applications for the public, which can provide information and litigation services for concerned parties, lawyers and the public anytime anywhere.

i. Serving concerned parties in lawsuit

In the Information Age, the purpose of litigation service is to “share more data, facilitate the public and lower litigation cost”. Whatever judicial needs the people have, the people's courts should meet them with judicial services, so as to truly lessen the burden on concerned parties. Information technology makes the whole litigation process more efficient, saves judicial resources, and saves a lot of time and economic cost for concerned parties.

The Guiding Opinions of Supreme People's Court on Comprehensively Promoting the Building of Litigation Service Center in People's Courts demanded solid efforts to build litigation service centers on the principle of systematic, informationbased, standard and socialized development. The purpose is to provide concerned parties with one-stop and comprehensive litigation services in multiple ways from case registration to trial and to enforcement, and facilitate them in handling all other litigation matters in one place except court trial.

Since the Supreme People's Court launched the litigation service website (ssfw.court.gov.cn), this effective convenience-for-people measure has been promoted to courts of lower levels. The litigation service website offers a range of functions such as online case registration, case inquiry, electronic delivery, online file review, supervision and suggestion, so concerned parties can submit civil action materials online, and litigation participants can log on to check progress of the case. The website also pushes process information on the case to litigation participants in a real-time manner by way of SMS, Weibo, WeChat, etc. The litigation self-service platform launched by Beijing courts provides concerned parties with one-stop services covering all process nodes, and provides services across administrative zones by sharing online resources and through self-service inquiry equipment. Concerned parties can check case information and print judgement document across districts, and communicate with the judge via video or by leaving messages. The online litigation service center set up by the people's court in Weihai Economic &Technological Development Zone of Shandong Province realized online case registration, payment of litigation fees, exchange of evidence, mediation, award and electronic delivery. In view of the fast pace of life and work in the modern society, it's not flexible enough for the people to deal with litigation matters during the work hours of the court, so the online litigation service center set up by the people's court in Weihai Economic & Technological Development Zone provides around-the-clock services as well as the reservation function to facilitate the people. The Quanzhou Intermediate People's Court of Fujian province initiated in the country the litigation service platform that realizes “across regions, connectivity and direct service”. In the scope of Quanzhou, if a resident engages in a lawsuit, he or she can choose any close-by litigation service center or people's tribunal to file an application to the competent court regarding the dozens of litigation matters ranging from pre-suit consulting to file registration, trial, enforcement and petition with letters and visits. Based on information technology and judicial cooperation, the people's tribunal receiving the case and the competent court shall cooperate to work on the case. This is of the same effect as the resident went directly to the litigation service counter of the competent court, but it saves him or her the time of traveling back and forth.

E-court and tech-court facilitate the concerned parties while serving the judges at the same time. E-court means that you don't have to go to the court to “file the lawsuit” because all the litigation procedures, including case registration, fee payment, file review, evidence exchange, enforcement, judicial auction and even court trial, are conducted online, and the concerned parties and lawyers can enjoy paperless, 24-hour and full-process online litigation services. The concerned party can log on the e-court wherever there is Internet access. After being authenticated, he or she can receive or transfer materials, pay litigation fees and conduct electronic delivery following the online instructions. He or she does not have to register the case at the court, or make many trips to supplement materials, and can have a clear idea of the progress on the case. The e-court provides the plaintiff, the defendant and the judge a visualized online litigation platform, on which it guides the concerned parties to submit litigation materials, conduct cross-examination of evidence, exchange evidence, receive and review files and carry out other litigation activities online. This effectively breaks the limitation on space, time and number of crossexamination on litigation. Thanks to the e-court, the concerned parties and their agents ad litem can exchange evidence and conduct cross-examination online anytime before the court opens session, and fully express their opinions on the online pleading platform and cloud conference platform. Therefore, both sides can straighten out all focal points of the case before the court begins session and only have to focus on those points in court. The thorough participation in litigation gives the concerned parties a clear and direct understanding of the whole litigation process, so their prediction of the final judgment will be more objective and rational and the judgment will be more convincing. Courts in Yanbian of Jilin Province used e-court to handle many tricky cases where the concerned parties are located in different places. In 2016, courts of two levels registered 18,928 cases online through e-court, and tried 159 cases using remote video trial. The Zhejiang court system, in view of the advanced e-commerce and large number of legal disputes related to it in the province, developed the e-commerce online court and realized “online disputes to be solved online”.

ii. Serving lawyers in case handling

In the course of developing the rule of law and building a socialist law-based country, lawyers are playing a more important role in protecting the interests of their clients, checking the abuse of public power and preserving judicial justice, and their position has been rising year by year. However, for a long time, lawyers' practicing rights are not well guaranteed. In the past, lawyers had “three old difficulties” in practicing law, namely the difficulty in meeting the clients, reviewing the files, and investigating and collecting evidence. But “three new difficulties” emerged in recent years, namely the difficulty in asking questions, conducting cross-examination of evidences and debating, which are obstacles to lawyer's normal performance of duties. Since the 18thCPC National Congress, the political-legal departments made a special point of respecting lawyer's dignity, facilitating their work and creating a new model of professional relationship between prosecutor and defendant, and between defendant and court. The third plenary session of the 18th CCCPC passed the Decision on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform,in which one of the important reform measures is to “improve the mechanism that guarantees lawyer's practicing rights”. The fourth plenary session of the 18thCCCPC put forth the concept of “team on rule of law”, and made it clear that lawyers make an important component of the community of legal profession and their rights should be guaranteed. The court informatization program and Internet Plus plan are able to, on the technical level, support lawyers to exercise their rights according to law and consequently overcome both the old and new “three difficulties”. On the online platform, the court notifies lawyers of all process nodes in a timely manner and provides them with diversified inquiry services;the electronization of files and online search and review function make it more convenient for lawyers to review the files; and online submission and crossexamination of evidence and online debate better guarantee lawyer's practicing rights.

In some local courts, mass application of informatization to serve lawyer's work has been made in a systematic way. For example, the first circuit court of the Supreme People's Court set up multimedia file review room for lawyers in the trial area, facilitating their work with advanced hardware facilities. Shanghai built the lawyer service platform that has 24 functions under five categories, including online case registration, file review and inquiry, and some functions are in particular popular with lawyers, such as online case registration, online payment, automatic trial scheduling, automatic push of related cases, and online application for attachment and evidence exchange. As of the end of December 2016, all the 1,581 law firms in Shanghai used that platform along with 309 law firms in other provinces and cities. The lawyer service platform was visited 2.04 million times, averaging 2,345 times per day, including 213,249 times of case inquiry, and 50,065 cases were registered online (through the Internet).

iii. Serving the public

The use of information technology makes it possible to better meet the people's diverse judicial needs, facilitates concerned parties to participate in litigation more conveniently, brings justice closer to the people, and makes the people truly feel fairness and justice. On the official website of the Supreme People's Court, the Service column is in an eye-catching position, through which visitors can obtain such information as “litigation must-know” and “litigation service guide” and visit relevant websites of judicial disclosure directly. Brick-and-mortar litigation service center, online court and “hand-held court” (mobile phone service platform) constitute a three-pronged litigation service platform to meet different needs. The online and offline platforms, in various ways such as smartphone APP, SMS and voicemail, provide judicial services to people of various age ranges, cultural levels, habits and propensity, and living environment. Courts at all levels adopted innovative measures to provide concerned parties with more convenient and personalized judicial services in various forms, both online and offline. For instance, Emeishan City set up vehicle-borne circuit tribunal, which includes seats for judges, clerks, the plaintiff, the defendant and auditors, and which is equipped with six systems including vehicle-borne monitoring, wireless remote image transmission and video and audio recording. The vehicle-borne circuit court can make and issue judgement document on site with electronic seal and signature, and the embedded LCD helps the public to sit in on the trial. It is an intelligent, small and mobile “tech court” integrating a wide range of functions such as case registration, court session, mediation, delivery and law publicity, providing quality judicial services for concerned parties with the lowest litigation cost and the most convenient approach.