Challenges and Strategies for Safeguarding the Principles of Criminal Law in Electronic Criminal Proceedings at the Trial Stage

Abstract

The transition from “place-based justice” to “data-driven justice” in the digital age has confronted criminal proceedings with fundamental challenges. Although the introduction of videoconferencing and artificial intelligence technologies promises to expedite judicial proceedings, it also places fundamental principles of criminal justice—including the right to presence and effective confrontation, the principle of public hearings, equality of arms, and judicial independence—at risk. Employing a descriptive-analytical method and a comparative approach, the present article examines the adverse implications of these developments and proposes legal and technical solutions. The findings indicate that technological mediation, by creating “emotional blindness” and eliminating vital body-language cues, impairs judges’ intuitive understanding, while reliance on an “algorithmic judge” reduces adjudication to “black-box justice” and opaque computational processes. Furthermore, infrastructural inequality results in a manifest violation of the principle of equality of arms. To address these challenges, this study proposes the adoption of a “hybrid model” in which electronic proceedings do not serve as an absolute substitute for in-person proceedings but rather as a conditional complement to them, subject to the defendant’s consent. The establishment of a system of “filtered transparency,” including real-time image blurring and delayed broadcasting to protect privacy in publicly accessible online courts; the creation of a dedicated tunnel within the National Information Network, with priority allocation for judicial data traffic to ensure stable connectivity; and the application of the “human-in-the-loop” principle to prevent the uncritical automation of judicial decisions constitute the principal strategies proposed for this emerging framework.