600 words per minute of voice input, which is 4 times that of manual typing input. This pace is happening in the Shanghai court trial.
On the morning of April 19, the c201 court of the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court (hereinafter referred to as the "Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court") was holding a public hearing on a labor dispute case, and the reporter observed the trial and witnessed the novelty of the new case handling model.
Unlike traditional trials, this trial no longer saw thick files piled up on the trial bench, nor did the clerks busy typing on the keyboard. Originally, from the real-time recording of trial speeches in the conversion of phonetic characters, to the electronic file review in court, the cross-examination of evidence, and then to the electronic signature of the post-trial record, the Shanghai Second Intermediate Court has realized the paperless "smart trial" of the whole process.
Efficient transcription of speeches in real time
At 9:30 a.m., the trial officially began as the presiding judge sounded the gavel.
"Appellant, what are your powers of attorney?" As soon as the chief judge's voice dropped, the courtroom's phonetic conversion system has converted the judge's speech into text in real time. As the trial progressed, the transliteration system faithfully and fluently recorded the statements of all parties, and the clerk only deleted and corrected individual typos and meaningless repetitive tone words.
Xu Zhengfeng, director of the Trial and Management Office of the Shanghai Second Intermediate People's Court, said that at present, all 32 courts of the hospital have installed pronunciation and character conversion equipment, and the recognition accuracy rate has reached more than 95%. In addition, the Shanghai Second Intermediate People's Court has also completed the transformation of 22 high-definition courtrooms, and high-definition trial video and electronic transcripts have jointly realized the high-fidelity record of the trial process.
During the trial, the presiding judge clicks the corresponding button on the screen to access the case file and even inquire about related cases, legal documents, legal provisions and other materials.
"Appellant, please state your appeal request." As the presiding judge asked questions, the system retrieved the civil appeal through the voice retrieval function. When the presiding judge clicks the "push" button, the material is immediately displayed on the computer in front of the parties, which greatly saves the time of going through the materials to find and pass during the trial.
The realization of these functions is based on the paperless case handling model fully implemented by the Shanghai Second Intermediate Court. This new model covers the generation of electronic files with the case at the case filing stage, the electronic reading of the case files before the trial, the paperless trial during the trial, and the "left reading and right writing" function on the computer interface when drafting legal documents after the trial.
This means that from the scanning of the first material submitted to the court by the parties to the final formation of the judgment document, all the case handling processes of the court will form electronic data.
The Shanghai Second Intermediate People's Court has begun to introduce a phonetic conversion system in the deliberations of the collegial panel and the deliberations of professional judges, recording the content of the deliberations and speeches throughout the process, supplemented by electronic signatures, so that all kinds of records can be generated at any time to form electronic file materials, and to put an end to "collegiality without discussion", so as to truly realize the "whole process of leaving traces" in the case handling process and promote the fairness, justice and efficiency of case handling.
Xu Zhengfeng introduced that since the electronic transcript is generated based on phonetic conversion technology, the opinions of all parties in the trial statement can be truly and objectively reflected, and this functional setting has greatly avoided the parties' objections to the content of the transcript. According to the regulations, the post-trial clerk only allows the parties to modify typos, not semantics. Ultimately, transcripts will be saved as pdfs and uploaded to the trial management system with one click, ensuring authenticity.
22 clerks guarantee the trial of the whole court
During the experience, the reporter noticed that from pre-trial preparation, to trial records, to post-trial signatures, all of these tasks were responsible for by the clerk.
It turned out that in October last year, the Shanghai Second Intermediate People's Court set up a clerk management office and established a team of 22 resident clerks. The clerk has changed from the traditional "follow-up" model of "following people" under the various business divisions to the "resident court" model assigned by the clerk management office to ensure the opening of the court.
After the reform, the average number of daily guaranteed trials by clerks has increased from more than 40 to more than 60, and at the peak of the trial, it can guarantee about 80 trials per day, close to the theoretical peak of the single-day scheduling of the Second Intermediate Court, and at the peak, it has guaranteed 107 trials a day, which has greatly improved the frequency and effect of court sessions.
"In the past, court records needed to be summarized by the clerk, which determined that the clerk must be attached to the business division and familiar with the characteristics of a type of case, so the number of court sessions was limited." Duan Ting, deputy director of the Clerk Management Office, said that today's technological innovation has subverted the traditional way of court record, so that clerks can be competent for more types of case records, play a more diversified role, so that judges can focus more on trial work during trial.
At the same time, through intensive management, the Shanghai Second Intermediate Court has made detailed provisions on the basic job responsibilities and operational procedures of clerks, further solving the problems of unclear responsibilities between clerks and judges' assistants in the classification management of personnel, ensuring that judges' assistants can devote more energy to assisting judges in handling cases.
Through the intensive management of clerks, the Shanghai Second Intermediate Court has guaranteed the trial records of the whole court with fewer clerks, and released a part of the clerks with legal professional backgrounds who are familiar with trial work to engage in the work of judges' assistants, thus realizing the 1:1 allocation of judges and judges' assistants in the main business divisions.