China launches artificial intelligence platform to boost judicial efficiency

After being used in areas such as education, tourism and healthcare, artificial intelligence is also being considered for China's judicial system to help judges improve work efficiency and give people easier access to legal services.

Yu Maoyu, editor-in-chief of the People's Court Press, unveiled an AI-generated judicial platform during a news conference at the Supreme People's Court in November. Yu said it had already been registered with China's cyberspace authority.

"The platform is a national-level legal AI infrastructure built on massive, authoritative and high-quality judicial data," Yu said, revealing that it had gathered 320 million pieces of legal information including court rulings, cases and legal opinions.

The platform can integrate vast information and quickly generate content in accordance with a user's requirements, as it is able to understand legal terms and logical reasoning, Yu added.

Zhang Chengbing, another official from the People's Court Press, said the platform can save judges time and energy in looking up and reviewing legal material and selecting cases, even though electronic devices already assist them.

"The platform can analyze and compare information from a large number of electronic files, with a quicker response to catch key points and extract outlines, so as to further improve judicial efficiency," he explained.

"To put it simply, it will be a legal assistant of judges, serving them in classifying legal information and reducing their burden in handling a rising number of cases," he said.

After the platform is further trained and optimized, it will also provide public legal services. A wider spectrum of people, such as residents, will be able to use it to meet their legal demands, Zhang said.

"For example, it will offer opinions and suggestions on mediation and litigation for people based on their specific situations, after understanding their nonprofessional queries on legal issues, so that they can access legal services and consultations more easily," he said.

It is not the first time that the top court has used emerging technologies to improve the efficiency and quality of case handling. The AI-powered platform is its latest step to make its courts "smarter".

Earlier this year, the top court opened an online archive for the public to search for landmark and major civil, criminal and administrative cases. The archive is intended as a timely response to public concerns on legal issues, such as mental abuse, cyberbullying, telecom fraud, domestic violence and justifiable defense.

Over the past decade, Chinese courts have also established multiple online platforms, including one for searching verdicts and one for attending trials. The online platforms aim to streamline legal procedures and offer litigants more convenient ways to follow their cases and access legal services.