China is encouraging digitisation to streamline case-handling within its sprawling court system using cyberspace and cutting-edge technology including AI , blockchain and cloud computing, China’s Supreme People’s Court has revealed. The efforts include a “mobile court” offered on popular social media platform WeChat with three million legal cases or other judicial procedures already handled since its launch in March.

The paper was released this week as judicial authorities provided journalists a peek inside the country’s first “cyber court”.

Concluding cases at a faster speed is a kind of justice, because justice delayed is justice denied

The court was established in 2017 in the eastern city of Hangzhou to deal with legal disputes with a digital aspect.

In a demonstration, authorities revealed how the Hangzhou Internet Court operates, featuring an online interface with litigants appearing by video chat as an AI judge – complete with on-screen avatar – prompts them to present their cases.

A black-robed virtual judge sitting under China’s national emblem was heard asking in a pre-trial meeting: ”Does the defendant have any objection to the nature of the judicial blockchain evidence submitted by the plaintiff?”

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