'Intelligent courts' highlight of Chinese judiciary: SPC

BEIJING -- Broad application of intelligence technologies in the court has made Chinese justice system stand out globally, a Supreme People's Court report said Tuesday.

Chinese courts have made notable progress in building "intelligent courts" over the past five years. As intelligence technologies have been introduced in all aspects of court services, all legal services can be accessed via internet and all legal proceedings are open to the public in accordance with the law, according to the report, submitted to the ongoing session of the 14th National People's Congress for deliberation.

Powered by information and intelligence technologies, Chinese courts have stood up to the impacts of COVID-19. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, nearly 30 million litigation cases have been filed via a nationwide online platform and 5.04 million hearings been held via video links, according to the report.

"Court trials and enforcement of verdicts never stop and justice is always served," the report said.

Information technologies also helped improve transparency of court work. From 2018 to 2022, about 140 million legal documents were made public at a nationwide court document website with over 100 billion visits. Meanwhile, more than 21 million trials were live streamed.

The SPC took the lead in regulating the application of artificial intelligence in court services, making it clear that artificial intelligence can only assist but never replace human judges.