Courtroom on the clouds: how online courts are transforming China’s court performances at the local level

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2012, China began its journey to digitalize its court system. While much of the existing scholarship has focused on the legal implications of the digitalized processes, only a small number of studies have looked into the empirical outcomes of these efforts. This research aims to fill this knowledge gap by providing both a panoramic view and close-up angle of China’s experience in online court development. By tracing and accounting for the development history of court digitalization and online courts in China since 2008, this research finds that the development of online courts in China could be characterized by a bi-directional approach, which involved (1) general direction and autonomy from the top authorities, (2) innovations and development at the local level, (3) refinement and wider adoption of outstanding local innovations, and (4) regulation and standardization of the novel elements. Through the compilation and analysis of a time-series dataset on the court performances of the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court, it finds that digitalization and online court development helped the court to achieve notable improvement in efficiency while maintaining its effectiveness at stable and high levels between 2013 and 2019. By considering online court’s impacts on access to justice, transparency, judicial ethics and the quality of court services, as well as the image of the law in China, this research also explores what insights other countries could draw on China’s experience in court digitalization and online court development.