Hangzhou, Beijing and Guangzhou have established Internet courts to reduce times for commutes and court hearings. The Beijing Internet Court receives hundreds of Internet-related lawsuits every day, such as infringement of copyright, contract disputes and liability disputes.

A judge with the Beijing Internet Court explains how the court works. (Photo/Xinhua)

Zhang Wen, president of the Beijing Internet Court, said the court adopts voice recognition, facial recognition, AI judges, and legal knowledge mapping to integrate multilateral mediation, case trial and executing, documentation of electronic evidence, and online delivery.

With the help of these technologies, the court has managed to reduce the average trial time for each case to about 55 days. A trial team usually has a judge, a judge’s assistant and two court clerks to hear a case.

The judge can get the most professional advice by consulting with university professors and legal experts to make sure the case is properly handled, said She Guiqing, vice president of the Beijing Internet Court.

The online litigation platform can translate the voices of the judge and the parties involved into text with an accuracy rate of 98 percent. The parties involved in a case can be present at a court wherever they are, as long as they have a cell phone and a network available.

According to Zhang, the online litigation platform placed 42,114 cases on file and concluded 40, 083 of them in 2019. In addition, the platform helped each person involved save an average of 800 yuan per case and avoid 16 hours of commuting.

The online litigation platform has also adopted a blockchain-backed system to check whether the electronic evidence submitted by a person is true or not. By the end of 2019, the system had collected more than 13.5 million pieces of data, documented all the information submitted by involved parties and verified 4,290 documents.

The practices of the Beijing Internet Court have gained global attention. In 2019, the court was visited 47 times by foreign guests from 44 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., France, Canada, Japan, Poland and Australia.

“We should learn from the Beijing Internet Court!” Luxembourg's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice Felix Braz said.