Use of online court services surge amid epidemic

 A Chinese online court service platform has seen sharp increases of newly registered users and active use of its tools amid the COVID-19 epidemic, the People's Court Daily reported on Thursday.

The mobile platform, built within the popular social networking app WeChat, offers services ranging from online case filing, mediation, evidence exchange to a court hearing.

In March, about 390,000 new users registered, up 86.78 percent from the previous month, while the total monthly visits also increased by 53.68 percent.

In the meantime, the number of case filing applications made on the platform grew 287 percent to 437,000 in March, as 32 high courts across the country have introduced an online identity authentication system with the help of facial recognition and other technology.

Cross-jurisdiction case filing was also widely used during the epidemic. Among the 34,000 such cases filed in March, about 80 percent were processed within 30 minutes.

Also in the same month, the number of electronic service of documents was 266,800, up 150.52 percent from February, and the numbers of online court sessions and evidence exchange were 7,460 and 17,895, respectively.

The platform, as of March 31, has 1.39 million real-name users and has been visited more than 270 million times.