Jing Gao Fa Fa [2020] No. 96

To No.1 Intermediate People’s Court, No.2 Intermediate People’s Court, No.3 Intermediate People’s Court, No.4 Intermediate People’s Court, Beijing Intellectual Property Court;

Beijing Internet Court and people’s courts of all districts:

In order to facilitate litigation by parties and agents, reduce litigation costs, and improve the quality and efficiency of case filing, Beijing High People’s Court has studied and formulated the Measures for Online Case Filing of Beijing Courts (the Measures) based on the summary of previous case filing experience of Beijing courts. The Measures extends the scope of direct online filing from current commercial cases of first instance, such as sales contract disputes, loan contract disputes, financial loan contract disputes, disputes of contract for work and commission contract disputes, to all civil and commercial cases, intellectual property cases and enforcement cases of first instance under the jurisdiction of courts at all three levels in Beijing. After the Measures for Online Case Filing of Beijing Courts becomes effective, the Measures for Online Case Filing Appointment of Beijing Courts (effective as of April 21, 2014), the Measures for Direct Online Case Filing of Beijing Courts (Trial) (effective as of January 1, 2016) and the Measures for Online Case Filing and WeChat Case Filing Appointment (effective as of February 20, 2019) no longer apply.

It is hereby announced.

Attachment: Measures for Online Case Filing of Beijing Courts

Beijing High People’s Court

March 9, 2020

Measures for Online Case Filing of Beijing Courts

Chapter I General Provisions

Article 1 In order to facilitate litigation by parties and agents, optimize the business environment, and improve the quality and efficiency of cases filing, the Measures is formulated in accordance with relevant laws and judicial interpretations such as the Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China and in light of the practices of filing cases in courts of Beijing.

Article 2 Online case filing refers to the working mechanism under which the parties and agents log onto the Beijing Court Trial Information Online or the Beijing Mobile Micro-Court Online Case Filing System to submit the application for case filing, and the case is directly placed on file with the approval of the court.

Article 3 Online case filing applies to civil, commercial, intellectual property rights and enforcement cases of first instance under the jurisdiction of courts of three levels in Beijing.

Article 4 The parties and agents shall obey the principle of good faith, enter relevant information truthfully, and ensure the integrity, clarity and authenticity of the relevant materials submitted; they shall not engage in false litigation and personate others to bring a lawsuit.

Chapter II Application

Article 5 After the parties and agents log onto the online filing system, they shall select the competent court, the type of the case and the specific cause of action according to the current laws and regulations of China.

Article 6 The parties and agents shall accurately fill in the amount of the litigation claims and the relevant identity information of the parties and agents, according to the requirements of the online case filing system, and upload the indictment (application form), identity certificate and instruments of authorization, evidence materials and other necessary indictment (application) materials according to the requirements.

The indictment shall specify the following matters:

1. The name, gender, ID, age, ethnic group, occupation, employer, domicile and contact information of the plaintiff; or the name and domicile of the legal person or other organization and the name, title and contact information of the legal representative or the primary head;

2. The name, gender, employer, domicile, the name and domicile of a legal person or other organization, etc. of the defendant

3. Claims and supporting facts and reasons;

4. Evidence, sources of evidence and names and domiciles of witnesses.

Beijing courts have developed a template of factor-based indictments for cases in specific types. Parties can log onto the Beijing Court Trial Information Online, download the template and input information of relevant elements. Then a petition for appeal will be automatically formed, for the convenience of litigation.

Article Materials like the indictment and application form shall use electronic texts in A4 papers, submitted by the parties and agents in the online case filing system of Beijing Court Trial Information Online (http://www.bjcourt.gov.cn). Also, the editable indictment, the electronic text of application form (in Word format), and other paper documents in PDF, JPG or BMP format, which are consistent with the written materials, shall be attached.

The filing materials uploaded by the parties and agents into the Beijing Mobile Micro-Court Online Case Filing System shall be in such picture formats as JPG and BMP.

Article 8 The filing (application) materials and electronic information submitted by the parties and agents through the online case filing system shall not contain contents prohibited by laws and regulations, such as contents disturbing social order, insulting or defaming others.

Article 9 Parties and agents may submit an application after submitting information or uploading materials in accordance with the requirements of Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Measures. The date of submission is the date of application.

Chapter III Review, Handling and Case Transfer

Article 10 The case-filing tribunal shall arrange a corresponding number of case filing judges, according to the workload, to carry out the review of online case filing.

Article 11 Unless otherwise provided in the Measures, the case filing judges shall, within three working days from the date when the system receives the filing materials, complete the review of an online case filing application and handle the application as follows:

1. If the case meets the filing requirements, it shall be placed on file.

2. If the materials submitted by parties and agents do not meet the requirements, the judge shall give full notification of the materials to be supplemented and corrected and the relevant time limit at one time. If the materials meet the legal requirements after being supplemented and corrected within the specified time limit, the case shall be placed on file. If the materials fail to be supplemented and corrected within the time limit or fail to meet the requirements after being supplemented and corrected, the judge shall deliver a ruling of refusal.

3. If a party’s filing does not meet the legal conditions and cannot be settled by means of supplementing or correcting materials, the people’s court shall deliver a ruling of refusal.

Article 12 A case filing judge can terminate the review if the case review fails through the online case filing system, under which circumstances the time limit provided in Articles 11 of the Measures shall not apply.

Article 13 For cases filed online, The case-filing tribunal shall randomly assign the electronic information of cases to the system of the presiding judge through the case division system.

Article 14 For cases placed on file, the limitation of action (limitation of application for enforcement) shall be interrupted from the date of application.

Chapter IV Miscellaneous

Article 15 Where parties and agents violate the provisions of Article 4 of the Measures by deliberately bringing a false lawsuit or personating others to bring a lawsuit, once such violation is found upon review, the case shall not be placed on file, and the parties and agents shall be lawfully punished in the light of the seriousness of the circumstances.

Where parties and agents violate the provisions of Article 8 of the Measures, the case filing court shall have the right to delete the filing materials and electronic information containing the above contents, and the submitter shall be lawfully punished in the light of the circumstances.

Article 16 Parties and agents shall pay the litigation costs online or on site within seven days from the date of case filing.

If the litigation fee has not been paid within the time limit and no application for reduction, exemption or postponement of the litigation fee has been filed, the case docketing court shall deal with it in accordance with the provisions of relevant laws or judicial interpretations.

Article 17 For cases filed online, upon application of parties, the judge of case filing can choose online or offline mediation in line with the circumstances of the case.

Article 18 According to the relevant laws and judicial interpretations, for cases that apply to online filing, if parties agree to receive electronic litigation documents, the filing court may use the instant communication tools such as the litigation platform, mobile phones, faxes and e-mails to perform electronic service instead of paper service by mailing.

Article 19 For cases that apply to online filing, parties don’t need to repeatedly submit filing materials in hard copies to the court at the stages of case filing, trial and enforcement.

Chapter V Supplementary Provisions

Article 20 The Measures shall be interpreted by Beijing High People’s Court.

Article 21 The Measures shall be effective on the date of issuance.