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China's first internet juvenile tribunal set up in BIC

english.bjinternetcourt.gov.cn | Updated: 2021-06-03

   

China's first internet juvenile tribunal was established in the Beijing Internet Court (BIC) on May 2021, as the cyberspace environment grows increasingly complex and how to protect the legitimate rights of ever-younger netizens is becoming a pressing issue. 

On May 28, the BIC held a workshop to discuss online judicial protection for minors. Experts and scholars from top universities and research institutes, deputies to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, representatives from major online portals and media outlets attended the workshop and shared their views. 

In his address to the workshop, Zhao Ruigang, vice-president of the BIC, said that the establishment of the internet juvenile tribunal is a key measure to implement the central leadership’s instructions on strengthening protection of minors and ensuring the effective implementation of the Minors Protection Law. 

The revised Minors Protection Law came into effect on June 1, 2021. 

Sun Mingxi, presiding judge of the court's juvenile division, briefed the BIC's trials related to minors. Over 20 cases were heard since the court's establishment, involving such issues as online game charge, live-streaming rewarding, online shopping and online infringement of personality rights with strong complexities. 

An exposure draft of the BIC's guidelines on strengthening online judicial protection for minors was introduced at the workshop, inviting comments from attending experts. 

The attending experts and scholars spoke highly of the establishment of the internet juvenile tribunal, and shared their ideas on strengthening online protection for minors from perspectives such as clarifying platform's responsibilities, joint efforts of family, school and society, enhancing law publicity and education, focusing on the uniqueness of minors within the cyberspace context and protecting their privacy. 

Online portal representatives shared their practices of protecting minors on their platforms and the challenges they face on this subject.