Another Chinese characteristics: automated verdict issuing. From Reuters via the New York Times:
A court in China has used a software program to help decide prison sentences in more than 1,500 criminal cases, a Hong Kong newspaper said on Wednesday.
The software, tested for two years in a court in Zibo, a city in the eastern coastal province of Shandong, covered about 100 different crimes, including robbery, rape, murder and state security offences, the South China Morning Post said, citing the software’s developer, Qin Ye.
“The software is aimed at ensuring standardized decisions on prison terms. Our programs set standard terms for any subtle distinctions in different cases of the same crime,” Qin was quoted as saying. But some Chinese newspapers criticized the move as a farce that highlighted the “laziness of the court” and that would not curb judicial corruption as touted. [Full Text]
Some say automated verdicting is a judicial backpedaling, a handful of people say it’s an possibly effective antibody against judicial corruption, see Chinese report
