New online system to make court less daunting for litigants

The Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court Tuesday released a new self-developed online system to make the execution of its decisions easier and more transparent, the first of its kind in the city.

The system will inform litigants involved in civil cases of the progress and results via messages. By clicking the link in a message, litigants can search for detailed information like the measures the court has taken for execution.

Litigants can also contact judges on this system or provide supporting documents or evidence for cases.

As for judges responsible for execution, they can set their weekly schedules and the system will then remind them of work affairs based on their plans. Moreover, it will automatically send tasks to the judges with the advancing of a case.

The system is also available on the court’s official WeChat account.

Tang Liming, deputy head of the court, told Shanghai Daily that so far the system will only be applied in the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court as a trial run, and that they will collect responses from users to perfect it. After it grows more mature, it may be promoted to other courts in Shanghai.

Last year the court helped litigants to get back nearly 4.5 billion yuan (US$ 670 million). It issued 1,378 orders to restrict those who neglected to pay back outstanding amounts from high consumption and organized 186 judicial auctions.