The mediation platform of people’s courts gives full play to the advantages of online mediation and improves the efficiency of resolving the source of contradictions and disputes

In October 2021, the Supreme People’s Court successively issued the Implementation Opinions on Deepening the One-stop Pluralistic Dispute Resolution Mechanism of People’s Courts and Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Work of People’s Court Mediation Platform in Rural Areas, Communities and Grids, demanding to improve the work pattern of People’s Courts in resolving disputes at the source, establish classified and graded ways to prevent and resolve conflicts and disputes, and promote the people’s court mediation platform in rural areas, communities and grids. We will build a grass-roots dispute resolution service system with grass-roots people’s courts and people’s courts as the main body and extensive participation of the masses, prevent and resolve disputes on the spot in time, and provide litigation services nearby or at home, so that the masses can resolve disputes at their doorstep. At the same time, the people’s courts should also strengthen the source settlement of financial, labor disputes, marriage and family, intellectual property rights, Internet disputes and other key areas.

As a national online mediation platform promoted by the Supreme People’s Court, the people’s court mediation platform has achieved good results in fully implementing the relevant work requirements of the Supreme People’s Court. In terms of resolving the source of contradictions and disputes, in order to fully carry out the work of people’s court mediation platform in rural areas, communities and grids, the people’s court mediation platform has launched a grass-roots governance platform, which enables people’s courts to connect with grass-roots governance units through online means, intensively integrate grass-roots social governance resources into the people’s court mediation platform, achieve full coverage of grass-roots dispute resolution forces, and realize online early warning, diversion, resolution, mediation, judicial confirmation, progress tracking, result feedback, guidance and supervision. Since the grassroots governance platform was launched, 8,210 people’s courts across the country have docked 38,844 grassroots governance units through the people’s court mediation platform, and completed online resolution and mediation of 5,832 disputes.

In terms of multiple dispute resolution, as of December 15th, 2021, the people’s court mediation platform has cooperated with the Price Certification Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, the People’s Bank of China, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, China National Intellectual Property Administration, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese and the China Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises through "total-to-total" cooperation. In 2021, more than nine units have participated in mediation of 145,800 pre-litigation cases through online platforms, with a mediation success rate of 62.65%, and successfully resolved more than 78,000 dispute cases.

Through the people’s court mediation platform and the Supreme People’s Court to carry out "total to total" mediation cooperation of some units.

Since the people’s court mediation platform was officially launched in 2018, it has continuously enriched the platform’s common functions and improved its capabilities, and provided platform users with multi-faceted and full-coverage online mediation services through online advantages.

Access to the national courts to realize the docking of online appeals.

The people’s court mediation platform has achieved full access to 3502 courts across the country, and the access rate of courts has reached 100%. In addition, the people’s court mediation platform and the court’s trial process management system have been interconnected. Cases accepted by the court can be pushed from the trial process management system to the mediation platform of the people’s court with one click on the premise of meeting the relevant requirements of mediation before and during litigation, and mediation work can be carried out through specially invited mediation organizations, specially invited mediators or mediation organizations of the "General Manager" unit. Disputes that have been mediated by specially invited mediation organizations, specially invited mediators and "General-to-General" mediation organizations can also be pushed to the trial system with one click through the mediation platform of the people’s court, and the court will complete the operation of issuing judicial confirmation, mediation book or filing a case.

The people’s court mediation platform computer terminal main station.

Empowering technology to provide convenience for users.

The people’s court mediation platform makes full use of the existing Internet technology, providing courts, mediators and parties with rich application capabilities. Mediators and parties can realize online video mediation through the online audio and video mediation capability of the people’s court mediation platform, breaking the time and space constraints, so that parties can participate in mediation anytime and anywhere. The people’s court mediation platform also provides the court with the ability to participate in mediation remotely, so that judges can also participate in the mediation process and better promote the parties to reach a settlement. In addition, the people’s court mediation platform also has the ability to sign online. On the platform, mediators and parties can sign online documents such as mediation transcripts and mediation agreements through mobile phones, achieving the goal of making people "run at most once, without running".

The people’s court mediation platform WeChat applet home page.

Manage the time limit of mediation to improve the efficiency of mediation

The people’s court mediation platform has set time limit management for the mediation process. After accepting the case, the court’s specially invited mediator needs to complete the mediation process within 30 days. If it is really impossible to complete the mediation within the specified time, if the time limit is extended with the consent of both parties, the extension time may be appropriately extended, and the extension time shall not exceed 30 days in principle. If a mediation agreement is not reached within the prescribed time limit or the parties explicitly refuse to continue to resolve or mediate, it shall be transferred to the filing procedure in time according to law. Through the time limit management of the mediation process, the average mediation time of cases on the people’s court mediation platform in 2021 is 18 days, which further exerts the advantage of "short time" in mediation.

The mediation platform of the people’s court will continue to improve its functions, enhance its technical capabilities and provide "menu-style" dispute resolution services for the broad masses of the people on the basis of the existing good practices of resolving the source of contradictions and disputes and resolving disputes in multiple ways, and contribute to the realization of one-stop diversified dispute resolution to the grassroots, society, the Internet and key industries.