Opinions on Application of AI in Chinese Legal Practice EN: AI Application in Legal Practice? China Releases Its Guidance
At the DIRO Spring Meeting in May 2023, We, lawyers from Shanghai Landing Law Firm discussed with European colleagues the rapid development of artificial intelligence (hereinafter referred to as “AI”) and the profound changes it has brought and will bring to legal practice. Moreover, we noticed that the Supreme People's Court of China released the “Opinions on Application of AI in Chinese Legal Practice” (hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions”) at the end of the Year 2022. We would like to draw your attention to the following summary on this Opinion.
I. Objectives
It is stated in the Opinions that AI technology will be widely applied in Chinese legal practice, which aims to provide a full range of intelligent assistance, significantly reduce the workload of Chinese judges (who, sometimes, have to handle or process more than 150 cases per person every year), and to effectively promote integrity in the administration of justice.
II. Basic Principles
The application of AI in legal practice must conform to the "National Security and Legitimacy)" (which is the most important as considered in The Opinions). Echoing that, the use of AI technologies and products that does not comply with the laws will be prohibited, in order to ensure that the state secrets and personal information are not unlawfully infringed, and to safeguard the security of online data. For example, ChatGPT is fully banned in China, not to mention its application in the work of Chinese court.
III. Scope of Application
The following application scenarios are clearly listed in the Opinions:
a. Supporting Case Processing
In this Opinion, it is allowed to use AI support in the judicial case processing as follows: the review of evidence, the search of similar cases and judgements, and the review and draft of legal documents, etc. This is believed to be helpful to promote uniformity in adjudication and maintain judicial justice.
b. Supporting Work in Judicial Practice
According to this Opinion, AI can also play an essential role in the intelligent applications of judicial affairs in the future from the following aspects: the automatic classification of electronic files, the automatic filling in of case information, the streamlining of judicial cases, the automatic recommendation of service methods and addresses, and the automatic generation of judicial and trial record transcripts, etc. With its assistance the court work efficiency will be significantly improved.
Due to the rapid development of AI technology, in addition to the listed above, China is also actively exploring new scope of application of AI in areas such as legal proceedings and executions. In the future, AI will be more widely applied in the judicial field.
IV. IT System Construction
China shall accelerate the construction of IT systems such as judicial databases, data service online platforms, AI engines, information service platforms and judicial blockchain platforms in order to fully support the application of AI in legal practice pursuant to The Opinions.
Please kindly take note that, this article does not exhaust all the guidance issued by Chinese authorities on AI’s application in legal practice; we will put an eye on the changes in relevant laws, regulations and policies, and keep you updated.
