From November 28th to 29th, the 10th China Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies was held at Xiangtan University. The academic paper titled "Judicial Trust in the Digital-Intelligence Era: The Formation Mechanism and Influencing Factors of Trust in Intelligent Judiciary", authored by JD/JM students Luo Senhan, Chen Linglin, Wang Haoran, Chen Yuxuan, and Yuan Yiming, stood out from 401 submissions nationwide and was awarded the Second Prize.
This year's conference was jointly organized by the Law School of Xiangtan University, the Institute for Empirical Legal Studies of Sichuan University, and the Editorial Department of the Journal of Shandong University (Philosophy and Social Sciences). It was co-organized by the editorial departments of China Law Review, SJTU Law Review, Local Legislation Journal, Sun Yat-sen University Law Review, and China Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.
With the theme "Frontier Dialogues in China's Empirical Legal Studies: Diverse Methods, Global Perspectives, and Local Experience", the conference focused on deepening the integration of theory and practice, promoting interdisciplinary fusion between law and other fields, broadening the international perspective on domestic issues, and encouraging more young students and scholars to engage in empirical legal research in China. It actively aims to build an open academic exchange platform for China's empirical legal studies.
The conference received 401 paper submissions, primarily from the field of law but also covering economics, management, sociology, political science, statistics, and other disciplines. Authors hailed from nearly a hundred universities and research institutions, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Renmin University of China, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, etc., as well as from legal practice units such as courts, procuratorates, and public security bureaus in over twenty provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions.
The organizing committee invited multiple experts to form review panels that conducted anonymous initial, secondary, and final evaluations of the submitted papers. A total of 30 papers (top 7.48%) were selected for awards, comprising 5 First Prizes, 10 Second Prizes, and 15 Third Prizes. An additional 20 papers were granted participation qualification. The student team of STL was invited to attend the conference, and Wang Haoran, a 2024 JD/JM student, delivered a presentation on their paper.
The award-winning paper by the team focuses on exploring the trust challenges arising from the integration of AI and the judiciary. Aiming to bridge the judicial trust gap in the digital-intelligence era, the project employs a mixed-methods research approach. It combines qualitative methods such as desk research and grounded theory of coding with quantitative methods like scenario-based experiments to systematically analyze the impact mechanisms and psychological response pathways of AI involvement in judicial decision-making on trust. The paper addresses the tensions and demands of the digital-intelligence judicial era, providing empirical support and suggestions for advancing the construction of smart courts and the governance of artificial intelligence.
