By Wang Hairong

Although the Internet seems to exist as a lawless frontier of identity fraud, anonymous slander and hardcore pornography,some law makers are eagerly bringing justice to the world’s wild Web.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., China’s largest e-commerce company that runs C2C website Taobao.com and B2C website Tmall.com, is headquartered in Xihu District in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province,

A colossal amount of transactions are carried out on the two websites every day.According to Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, the combined transaction volume of Taobao.com and Tmall.com surpassed 1 trillion yuan($159 billion) in the first 11 months of 2012.

Out of the astronomical number of online sales also rose a huge amount of disputes. In 2011, Taobao.com users were reportedly involved in approximately 400 million disputes over discrepancies, defects,intellectual property violations, fraud and malicious complaints. Although Taobao.com has a team of more than 500 members to handle disputes, many have been brought to court.

Since most e-commerce disputes are trivial and involve parties not residing in the same city, legal experts warn that such cases would waste legal resources if brought to trial.

He Jun works for the Xihu District Bureau of Justice. He successfully mediated a dispute involving a consumer who complained of an allergic reaction to cosmetics purchased on Taobao.com in 2011. The vendor refused a refund, saying that the cosmetics he sold were of good quality. Taobao.com’s Consumer Service Department could not broker an agreement between the buyer and seller, so it handed the case to He.

The mediator held a videoconference for the distant parties. The buyer showed her symptoms. Noting the allergic reaction appeared quite serious, the vendor agreed to a refund. Both parties expressed satisfaction with the solution.

In December 2011, Song Yan, Deputy Director of Xihu District Justice Bureau told the Legal Daily that they had solved more than 1,000 disputes through online mediation, accounting for about 8 percent of the district’s total resolved cases. Song said that out of 10 difficult resolved issues involving parties not living in the same region, nine were mediated online.

CYBERCOURT: Judge Chen Liaomin (left) at the Xihu District People’s Court in Hangzhou,east China’s Zhejiang Province, attends to an online mediation workshop on August 16, 2012

E-solutions

Inspired by the success of the Xihu District Bureau of Justice in mediating civil disputes online, the Xihu District People’s Court launched a mediation workshop on the Internet in September 2011. In the first month, it resolved four cases.

Chen Liaomin, a 40-year-old judge at the court, has become ever busier since the launch of the online mediation workshop.Besides her regular caseload, answering messages from litigants occasionally encroaches upon her spare time.

With Internet services such as encrypted e-mail, secure chat rooms and videoconferencing, it is possible for people in different places to resolve disputes through online mediation.

“Sincere exchanges with judges in cyberspace can allow litigants, who either live in different cities or are unwilling to sit face to face, accept mediation,” Chen told Xinhua News Agency.

Chen’s online workshop has logged 450,000 hits and she has offered legal advice on 732 cases through audio, video or text communication.

Recently, Chen helped a mother in Chongqing in southwest China resolve her dispute with a local hospital over a skin disease her son contracted after receiving an injection. After reaching a deal with hospital officials, the mother, who has never met the judge in person, said that Chen’s efforts had boosted her trust in the legal system.

Now, online mediation is used to settle disputes in many places across China.

Zhang Youde, Dean of the Social Science Department of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law,said that China is in a transitional period,and as disputes in a number of areas are rising notably, so are legal cases filed with courts. He said that judges can defuse con flicts and assuage public anxiety by offering online consulting and mediating services.

QQ courts

Recently, the Shouxian County People’s Court in Lu’an City, east China’s Anhui Province, successfully mediated a case involving compensation for workplace injury.

Plaintiff Yang, a construction worker from Anhui’s Bozhou City, was injured when blown off a roof on July 25, 2011, while building a factory workshop in Shouxian. He was hired by an engineering company. After consulting a local lawyer, Yang sued the company and Zhou, the project’s on-site supervisor, for an indemnity of 150,000 yuan ($24,073) at the Shouxian County People’s Court.

The judge handling the case found that the seat of the engineering company is more than 1,000 km away from Shouxian, and Yang and Zhou also resided in different cities. To save both parties the trouble of traveling back and forth to court, the judge suggested online mediation, and the three agreed.

The three parties and the judge simultaneously logged in to the QQ instant messaging system to present documents, arguments and evidence.

After discussion with the judge and the plaintiff, the defendants agreed to jointly compensate Yang 120,000 yuan ($19,259). Later,Yang, Zhou and a representative of the engineering company went to the court together,signing the mediation agreement and handing over the compensation.

Inspired by stories of online dispute mediation in other courts, Judge Ouyang Xin at the People’s Court of Quyuan Administrative District in Yueyang City, central China’s Hunan Province,also mediated a divorce case via QQ.

In February 2012, a woman surnamed Yi sued her husband Huang for divorce at the People’s Court of Quyuan Administrative District. Yi and Huang met while working in south China’s Guangdong Province. They registered for marriage in Quyuan Administrative District in 2003. But in 2008, Huang returned to his hometown in central China’s Henan Province. After being separated for four years, Yi filed for divorce at the People’s Court of Quyuan Administrative District.

After hearing the case, the court subpoenaed Huang, who insisted he was too busy to appear in court. Trial by default was an option,but Huang would lose an opportunity to defend his legitimate rights. Ouyang decided to resort to online mediation.

via videoconference, Yi and Huang agreed that Huang should take custody of their daughter, Yi should pay 800 yuan ($128) in monthly support until the kid turns 18, and the two should each pay half of their joint debts.

Speaking from his experience in mediating the divorce case, Ouyang said that a key step in online mediation is con firmation of the involved parties’ identities. To ascertain Huang’s identity,the judge asked Yi’s long-time neighbors to confirm that the man appearing in the video was Huang, and Yi was also asked to verify Huang’s signature on the agreement.

Ouyang said that currently online mediation has been successfully used for simple cases.However, he told Hunan-based news portal voc.com, “For complicated cases that involve many pieces of evidence, the involved parties have to appear in court personally.” ■