Building a "Provincial Digital Court" and Creating a

New Picture of the "Court of the Future" in the Digital Era

Li Zhanguo, Justice, President of Zhejiang High People's Court of the People's Republic of China

Distinguished guests, colleagues and friends,

"An excellent judicial system should help people solve their real-life problems." With people's work and life increasingly featuring digitization, networking and intelligence, the public has put forward higher demands for online, integrated, collaborative and intelligent judicial activities. In recent years, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) of the People's Republic of China has been actively responding to the needs of the rule of law in the digital era, comprehensively promoting the development of “smart courts” with “all business online, all processes open by law and all-round intelligent services”, and embarking on a new and world-leading path of Internet justice with Chinese characteristics.

People's courts in Zhejiang have earnestly implemented the deployment of the SPC, and made many attempts in online judicial auctions, reform of court records and online diversified dispute resolution. In particular, the world’s first Internet court—Hangzhou Internet Court was established in August 2017, realizing "online disputes resolved online" and creating a new model of Internet justice. In October 2017, the "Mobile Micro Court" was launched, bringing about "litigation at fingertips and case handling in palms", which was given full play during the COVID-19 pandemic, creatively resolving the risk of crowding caused by "face-to-face" litigation. In such a way, 24-hour filing, online trial and virtual enforcement have all come true. Based on these attempts, we have consolidated and enhanced the innovative achievements of "Hangzhou Internet Court” and "Mobile Micro Court" in accordance with the top-level design of "platform + intelligence", turning the "bonsai" into "landscape". Besides, every effort has been made to build a "provincial digital court" with "online and offline deep integration, intranet and extranet sharing and collaboration, and wired and wireless interconnection". There are mainly three steps in this process.

First, platform integration enables cross-unit "unified online service". We aim mainly to build an integrated case-handling office platform that connects all units vertically and horizontally, and to open up digital channels for all services, all procedures and all case-handling elements in people’s courts. Since 2018, people’s courts in Zhejiang have integrated the original 84 business systems and built a unified “Integrated Case-Handling Office Platform of People’s Courts in Zhejiang”, with 106 courts and 15,000 staff members in the province working on the same platform, providing systematic services and strong support for more than 150 business scenarios such as case filing, fee payment, evidence presentation and cross-examination, court hearing, collegial discussion, etc. At present, people’s courts in Zhejiang have completed this step. Internally, the integrated platform has activated the untapped judicial data resources, and laid a foundation for the intelligent and silent management of trial power operation; externally, it has realized cross-sector data sharing and business collaboration with public security, people’s procuratorates and other units, building a working model featuring overall intelligent governance and efficient collaboration. With the reform of real estate judicial auction as a breakthrough point, people’s courts in Zhejiang have horizontally connected the case-handling system with business systems of more than 20 units such as natural resources and taxation, and vertically penetrated the system into five administrative levels of province, city, county, township and village, so that the ownership transfer of the real estate in auction can be “concluded at one counter one time”. The time of judicial auction has been shortened by more than 40% and the average certificate processing time has been shortened from 20 days to 2 days, 1 hour the shortest.

Second, paperless office enables “online case handling” during the whole process. The integrated platform allows the extensive application of paperless office in case filing, trial, enforcement, archiving, etc., which forms a full-process paperless case-handling mechanism. It should be noted that paperless office is a transformation of the way of handling cases and office work within people's courts, rather than forcing the parties to conduct online litigation. It is the “incremental” service provided by people's courts in addition to offline litigation, so as to reduce costs without compromising the quality and improve efficiency without impairing people’s rights. At present, people’s courts in Zhejiang have basically completed this step, with a paperless case-handling rate of 99% and a 14.1% increase in efficiency. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, people's courts in Zhejiang have filed 1.275 million cases online, conducted 34,000 hearings online and mediated 1.502 million cases online. In particular, the first asynchronous trial model broke the time and space restrictions of the traditional litigation model, so that the parties can participate in litigation at different times, in different places and out of sync. This has effectively solved the inconvenience caused by "time difference" and "different place", and brought the warmth of justice to the people directly to their hearts with speedier judicial fairness.

Third, intelligent empowerment realizes an all-round “intelligent justice”. Based on the realization of the integrated platform and paperless office, we adopt the "algorithm + data" method to promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and judicial activities, and strive to improve efficiency for the parties, reduce the burden on judges and empower trial management. Focusing on financial loan disputes, we have successfully developed the AI judge assistant "Xiaozhi" who can intelligently analyze case file materials, summarize the focus of disputes in real time and produce judgment documents simultaneously, so as to provide intellectual support for judges. We have concluded 3237 financial cases, and the average trial time has been shortened by 56.4%. We have also explored the development of the "digital court brain", so that the case-handling situation and performance of each region, court, division and judge can be presented digitally, enabling “one screen to know the whole province and one platform to cover the whole process”. We are now at the critical stage of going from paperless to intelligent development. Although we have made some attempts, we still need to constantly deepen the reform and bravely exploit the "no man’s land".

After the basic completion of the three steps of platform integration, paperless office and intelligent development, the following pictures will emerge into the future “provincial digital court”:

A full-lifecycle judicial platform. All procedures of trial and enforcement activities are transferred to this platform which provides integrated case-handling and office work services for judges internally, and unified online litigation services for the parties externally. By “entering one portal”, the parties can be engaged in all litigation business of all the courts in the region.

All-time online judicial services. Through the integrated platform, we can provide all-time and ubiquitous judicial services for people’s litigation and judges' case handling. Judges are not bound by paper files, and parties can participate in litigation activities at any time and any place. The court of the future is no longer a fixed venue, but a ubiquitous online service provider.

A full-process intelligent judicial model. Judicial AI is expanded infinitely up in the spiral of “application - precipitation - re-application - re-precipitation”, and provides more powerful intelligent support for the judges in handling cases. Certainly, justice is more of an art than a science. Computers can assist judges in handling cases, but they cannot replace judges.

An all-round reform of the judicial system. With the in-depth development of the "provincial digital court", the traditional judicial system built on the basis of the real "physical space" in the industrial age is facing reconstruction, and the responsibilities and positioning of existing judicial personnel also need to be re-defined and re-assigned. At the same time, case data gathered by the 'provincial digital court” becomes an important data resource that reflects social dynamics. It may promote the adjustment of society by the law, and turn post-event relief and restoration to discipline and shaping beforehand.

Dear colleagues, the world is being redefined by digits. Our society is operated digitally every day, and the future has come. People’s courts in Zhejiang will take this forum as an opportunity to learn from your insights and practical wisdom, strengthen exchanges and cooperation, and jointly promote the modernization of our courts in the digital era for the sake of higher-level digital justice.