The Legitimacy of Artificial Intelligence in Judicial Decision Making: Chinese Experience

1. Introduction

Whether it is in the field of legal information retrieval systems with continuously improving accuracy and completeness, or in the field of legal expert systems where reasoning models are constantly optimized and upgraded, the application of artificial intelligence technology in the field of judicial decision-making has played an important role in the past few decades. Although judicial artificial intelligence technology has been questioned by pure formal rationality and impersonal operation, its application in the field of judicial intelligent assistance systems has played an important role in promoting the professionalism and fairness of judicial judgments (Song, 2020). With the in-depth development of artificial intelligence philosophy, technology and products, algorithm reflect stronger autonomy and intervene in judicial decision-making, such as the “206 system” in Shanghai, the construction of “mobile micro-courts” in Zhejiang, the “intelligent adjudication and adjudication of cases” in Hangzhou Internet Court, the “electronic litigation platform” of Beijing Internet Court, and the “e-court” of Guangzhou Internet Court, which have triggered changes in the judicial operation mechanism, including the scene of the judicial process, the coding of judicial rules, the modeling of judicial decision-making, the wisdom of judicial service management and the improvement of the social efficiency of intelligent justice (Wu, 2020; Chen, 2021). On the one hand, the domestic academic circles are surprised that the intelligent judicial trial reform process is so rapid, and on the other hand, there are general doubts and concerns about the judgment results of the algorithm calculation (Ji, 2018). However, intelligent judicial intervention in judicial decision-making inevitably faces the question of whether it should be allowed. Therefore, it is urgent to clarify the legal logic of artificial intelligence in judicial decision-making and clarify its decision-making limits. Therefore, this paper aims to prove the legality of intelligent judicial operation simultaneously from the four-dimensional perspectives of artificial intelligence's intervention in judicial decision-making: the judge's subjectivity, the legitimacy of power, the attribution of fault and the realization of justice, to realize the legitimacy of intelligent judicial operation at the same time, to make suggestions on the governance of Intelligent Justice in China in terms of subject, power, responsibility, and justice.