![]() Consequently, while the “embrace of legality” and the “professionalization of the judiciary” are not inherently contradictory goals, China’s present situation is one of increasing caseloads and decreasing judicial capacity. As of 2017, this policy has resulted in a 49 percent decrease in the number of judges from over 200 thousand to around 120 thousand. In 2014, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) introduced stricter internal evaluations and set a quota that limited the number of court personnel authorized to hear disputes to 39 percent, with existing judges that failed the examinations reassigned to administrative and support roles in the court. Complicating the chronic staffing issues is the parallel need to improve the judiciary’s legitimacy and public image through professionalization of court personnel. However, the roughly 30-fold increase in caseload since 1978 is matched only by a threefold increase in judges as of 2015. In the last four decades, China’s economic growth and the emphasis on the rule of law have led to an exponential increase in the number of court cases. China’s motives to foray ahead into uncharted space can be traced to factors specific to China’s needs.Ĭhina’s judicial reform and interest in leveraging AI is motivated by a chronic shortage of judges, a weak public image, and a pressing need to modernize. As of 2022, the courts and judicial processes of most countries have been largely untouched by AI and other disruptive technologies, with France outright prohibiting any development of predictive litigation AI in 2019. However, China’s current policy to modernize its judicial institutions and use AI, big data, and algorithmic adjudication into broad application by state institutions is pushing into new territory. ![]() As early as the 1970s, there was exploration at leading American universities on the possibility of AI use for legal research, argument construction, and expert systems, with robust research in the field continuing today. It is worth noting that AI and the law is one of the oldest interdisciplinary fields in the study of AI. Achieve the intelligentization of courts and trial systems and trial capacity”. Promote AI applications for applications including evidence collection, case analysis, and legal document reading and analysis. “Construct a set of trial, personnel, data applications, judicial disclosure, and dynamic monitoring into an integrated court data platform. On this last area, the AIDP contains a brief paragraph on the capacities envisioned for future ‘Smart Courts’: This includes use cases, such as reforming the nation’s welfare system, addressing negative externalities for environmental protection, building the oft discussed ‘Social Credit’ system, and modernizing the judicial system. In particular, the AIDP outlines China’s ambition to incorporate AI for ‘social’ and ‘moral’ governance. While the Chinese government had released a number of documents that touch on AI in prior years, the AIDP was the first that specifically focused on outlining a broad AI strategy that highlighted the state’s long-term intent to make China a center for AI innovation by 2030, and to leverage artificial intelligence in new forms of ‘e-governance’. In 2017, China’s State Council published the Artificial Intelligence Development Plan (AIDP), a national strategy white paper that charts China’s AI development aspirations up to 2030. This piece briefly summarizes the current landscape of China’s technology-driven judicial reform and highlights a number of key considerations that we believe are pivotal to whether China’s investment in AI will succeed in improving the efficiency and legitimacy of the courts. ![]() Some of these systems aim to make rote processes, such as transcription and document review, more efficient, while other more ambitious projects attempt to directly assist in the decision-making process. This has resulted in a number of pilot programs across the country that have produced various AI systems embedded in different areas of the judicial system. The push to use AI to such a large extent in the judiciary is unique to China, influenced by chronic challenges facing the courts, including an exponential increase in casework and a shortage of qualified professionals in the judiciary. In recent years, the Chinese government and its judiciary have made a policy decision to leverage artificial intelligence in broader judicial reform efforts.
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