Supreme People's Court, Circular on Strengthening and Regulating Online Litigation Work During the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control Period

Issued: February 14, 2020

Main contents: People's courts at every level shall actively guide litigants into online litigation. Court sessions for civil, commercial and administrative cases can generally be held online.  However, online hearings are not applicable where the parties to a case are not in agreement on online hearings, the technical conditions for online hearing are not met, identities need to be ascertained, originals verified and physical objects examined onsite, etc. In criminal cases, remote video links may be used to question defendants, announce judgments, adjudicate sentence reduction and parole cases, etc. The holding of court sessions over remote video links may be explored for simple criminal cases tried using summary procedure or fast-track procedure, cases of granting leniency where guilt is admitted and the punishment accepted and criminal cases involving obstruction of epidemic prevention and control (Articles 3 and 8).

Subject to the consent of the person being served, court documents and the exhibitions submitted by the parties may be served by electronic means such as China Mobile Micro Court, China Judicial Process Information Online, National Uniform Service Platform, fax, e-mail and instant messaging account (Article 10).