Responsible persons of relevant departments of the SPC answered reporters' questions on the effectiveness of the construction of smart courts in the people's courts

Source: Supreme People's Court

Transferred from: Supreme People's Court

Special note: All works marked with "source" or "from" in this number are reproduced from the media, and the copyright belongs to the original author and the original source. The content shared is the personal opinion of the author and is for the reader's study and reference only, and does not represent the views of this number

On October 13, the Supreme People's Court held a press conference to introduce the effectiveness of the construction of smart courts in the people's courts and answer questions from reporters. Xu Jianfeng, director of the Information Center of the Supreme People's Court, Chen Qiwei, deputy director of the Information Center of the Supreme People's Court, and Shang Chenglin, chief engineer of the Information Center of the Supreme People's Court, attended the press conference and answered reporters' questions, which was presided over by Li Guangyu, spokesman of the Supreme People's Court.

Question 1

The release mentions that at present, parties can participate in mediation and litigation online through the online service platform of the people's courts. How does the platform use and what services can be obtained online?

A: First of all, explain how this platform is accessed. We open the mobile phone WeChat, pull down into the WeChat Mini Program, search for "People's Court Online Service", the first place is our official "People's Court Online Service" platform. More than 3,500 courts across the country can enter through this portal, and through the "People's Court Online Service" homepage link, you can use the functions of online mediation and online case filing of courts in various places. The platform contains detailed litigation guidelines, and parties can participate in litigation online according to the operational guidelines on the platform after real-name authentication.

At present, the platform integrates the national common litigation service functions such as mediation, case filing, file reading, service, preservation, and appraisal, as well as the characteristic service functions of some local courts, supporting centralized inquiry and handling of litigation service matters of courts across the country, and can meet the judicial needs of the people for one-stop handling of online services of courts across the country.

At present, the "People's Court Online Service" has become a unified portal for courts across the country to provide online mediation, online litigation and other services to the people through the Internet, providing online services more than 10 million times a day. As of September 2022, the platform has registered more than 13 million real-name applicants, received more than 21 million online case filing applications, delivered more than 54 million documents online, and accumulated more than 3 billion visits. According to relevant statistics, with the support of the online service of the people's court, the parties have reduced the number of round-trips from about 6 times in the past to only 1 to 2 times, or even not once.

We welcome all parties to use the "People's Court Online Service" platform to carry out online litigation. Of course, we respect and protect the parties' and other litigation participants' right to choose the litigation method, and we also provide convenient and rich litigation service measures in offline places such as the court litigation service hall, and the parties can voluntarily choose online, offline or online and offline litigation methods.

Question 2

In the release, it is mentioned that the whole process of online case handling based on electronic files is implemented to promote the intelligent upgrading of case handling. May I ask, how do people's courts intelligently assist judges in handling cases through electronic files?

Answer: The case file is a record of the judicial trial work of the people's courts, comprehensively records every procedural step and relevant information in the process of handling the case, is the main line that runs through the judicial work of the people's courts, and is an important data foundation for the intelligentization of trials. We have comprehensively implemented the synchronous generation and in-depth application of electronic files with cases, which has completely changed the previous work mode of judges based on paper files.

Specifically, there are three steps:

The first step is to promote the generation of electronic files with cases, and we have widely promoted the online litigation model, so that a large number of case materials can be digitized from the source; For case materials submitted offline, the people's courts also promptly generate electronic documents that meet the requirements by scanning, tranching, or other means to form an electronic case file.

The second step is to promote the online circulation of electronic files, on the basis of the comprehensive digitization of file data and the court's "one network" to handle cases, we have "realized the whole process of online file reading" internally, supported the circulation of electronic files with the case-handling link, supported the members of the collegial panel within the court to read the case files online, the online discussion of the review committee, and supported the cross-level and cross-regional courts "file access", in the past, the traditional paper files were often as long as several weeks in the cross-court access cycle, and now judges only need to click the mouse to realize case appeal, transfer, Online access to electronic files for retrial and transfer of electronic files for cross-border case filing, which greatly improves the efficiency of case handling; Externally, relying on the online service platform, through the secure exchange of data between the Internet, we provide online application for electronic files and online file reading services, effectively facilitating parties and lawyers to read the case file online.

The third step is to promote the in-depth application of electronic files, courts across the country rely on judicial data middle office and smart court brains, widely apply artificial intelligence technologies such as image processing, text recognition, and semantic analysis to achieve in-depth application of file data, forming intelligent auxiliary functions such as automatic backfilling of case information, recommendation of similar cases, push of laws and regulations, reference to sentencing recommendations, automatic generation of documents, and one-click online filing, effectively assisting judges in finding and accurately applying the law, and promoting the uniform application of the law.

Taking the document writing link as an example, during the trial of the case, the system can intelligently analyze the case file information and extract the information of the parties' names, addresses, case numbers and other elements, and automatically generate simple procedural documents such as notices in 100%; When judges draft judgments, the system can help judges automatically load document templates, automatically identify electronic files and fill in basic information such as case facts and litigation claims, automatically associate legal provisions, guide evidence verification, and support automatic typesetting and inspection of document defects after the drafting of documents.

At present, the intelligent application of electronic files has run through the whole process from case filing to filing, which not only provides a lot of convenience for judges, but also effectively promotes the improvement of judicial fairness.

Question 3

The release mentioned that in May this year, the Supreme People's Court issued opinions on strengthening the judicial application of blockchain, how does the people's court specifically promote the application of blockchain technology?

A: In recent years, the people's courts have vigorously promoted the application of blockchain technology in the judicial field, mainly including three aspects:

First, a blockchain platform for the people's courts has been built. At present, there are more than 2.6 billion on-chain certificates stored on the blockchain platform of the people's courts, the application efficiency and standardization of solid evidence, intelligent assistance, and file management have been continuously improved, and application scenarios such as electronic evidence, electronic service deposit verification, and anti-tampering have been implemented.

The second is to carry out scientific research on judicial blockchain technology. We are working with the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Justice to jointly undertake the national key research and development plan "Demonstration Research on Key Technologies and Typical Applications of Judicial Blockchain", focusing on promoting breakthroughs in key technologies such as judicial blockchain certificate verification, smart contracts, and cross-chain collaboration.

The third is the issuance of the Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Strengthening the Judicial Application of Blockchain. It clarifies the overall requirements for the people's courts to strengthen the judicial application of blockchain and the requirements for the construction of the people's courts' blockchain platform, and will further promote the application of blockchain technology in four aspects: improving judicial credibility, improving judicial efficiency, enhancing judicial coordination capabilities, and serving economic and social governance.

Question 4

At present, the construction of smart courts in China has made remarkable achievements, what is the development direction of smart courts in the future?

A: At the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan", courts across the country generally built the 3.0 version of the informatization of the people's courts. Last year, we released the Five-Year Development Plan for the Informatization Construction of the People's Courts (2021-2025), proposing to build a version 4.0 of the informatization of the people's courts with knowledge as the center, the brain of the smart court as the core, and the middle office of judicial data as the drive. Specifically, there are several directions:

First, intelligence, for the majority of users, the life of informatization lies in improving quality and efficiency. Only by using automated and intelligent technology to greatly reduce the round-trip travel of the broad masses of the people and the workload of court cadres and policemen can we improve the enthusiasm for application.

The second is integration, although the courts across the country have carried out a lot of work around system integration and achieved remarkable results, but it is still necessary to further promote integration optimization through the overall design of system engineering.

The third is coordination, whether it is horizontally connected with other departments, vertically extended to daily social activities, there is a broad space for expansion of smart courts, and it is necessary to comprehensively optimize the internal and external processes of the people's courts, and support the construction of a cross-business, cross-level, cross-departmental, and cross-network system of people's court information sharing and business collaboration system.

Fourth, in the era of ubiquity and mobile Internet, the social life of the people is increasingly free from geographical space restrictions, judicial needs must also break the geographical space constraints, and smart courts should give full play to the comprehensive advantages of 5G mobile Internet technology to comprehensively promote the extension and expansion of infrastructure, business applications and intelligent services to mobile terminals.

Fifth, convenience, ease of use, easy to use, reliable is the basic requirements of the majority of users for information systems, the construction of smart courts always adhere to user orientation, and improve user experience as an important part of the development of smart courts.

At the same time, we will pay more attention to strengthening network security, data security, and personal information protection. These are the foundations for the construction of smart courts to be stable and far-reaching, and they are an inevitable requirement for safeguarding national security. We will strictly implement the responsibility for network security protection, formulate and improve the security management system and operating procedures, improve the data security governance system, strengthen the protection of personal information, and ensure the safe and healthy development of smart courts.