Chinese courts go digital

Wu Bin, vice president of Shanghai Media Group, demonstrates the app for China's Supreme Court in Beijing on Feb 27, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - Observing a case live on your iPad, filing a lawsuit online and paying legal fees via mobile phone... The Internet has made Chinese courts more accessible, transparent and even cool.

Most courts are establishing or have established online service platforms.

If you are located in Shanghai and want to file a lawsuit, you can just log onto the website of the Shanghai Higher People's Court, enter the lawsuit service page and choose a court in your administrative district.

Following the prompts, you fill in the personal information of all parties and the appeal, upload the plaintiff's identification and evidence, then submit it for the court's review. Applicants are promised a reply, and they can track the process of the review.

China plans to digitalize all its courts by the end of 2017, to give all people access to them via computer and mobile phone anytime, anywhere.

Northeast China's Jilin was the first to operate a provincial e-court, in June. Before its trial run, provincial higher court chief Wang Changsong went to the Republic of Korea (ROK) to learn from similar systems being used there.

The ROK's online court set-up impressed Wang much. A local court there spent 10 minutes receiving, registering and reviewing a case through the system, a process which could take a Chinese counterpart a whole day. It took just another hour to try the case. Wang learned that over half of the ROK's civil cases are handled online.

People in Jilin can now go through all legal procedures, except court trial, via the province's own e-court.

It saves time and cost in filing cases, which will motivate more people to seek legal weapons in protecting rights, according Wang.