随着科学技术的飞速发展，数字化改革的进程延伸至司法领域，由于我国长期以来存在着“案多人少”的困境和难题，因此，我国开始尝试探索利用互联网为司法发展赋能，刑事案件在线庭审应运而生。刑事案件在线庭审在我国经历了各地区人民法院自主探索、全国范围内广泛适用、司法解释等规范性文件进行系统规范等几个阶段。

刑事案件在线庭审作为一种创新的庭审形式，其具有自身独特的优势，其可以提高审判效率、节约司法资源、减轻诉讼参与人的诉累等。但是，刑事案件在线庭审与审判公开原则、控辩双方平等原则、直接言词原则存在一定的冲突。与审判公开原则的冲突体现在，在理想情况下线上庭审应当有利于社会公众旁听庭审，实现审判公开，但是当前的线上庭审状况很难实现社会公众参与旁听。网络技术、硬件设备尚未发展成熟，影响旁听公众数量，放开旁听权限可能会超出现有平台容量，影响庭审效果。同时，在线庭审的法庭纪律可控性较低，旁听人员录音录屏有庭审信息泄露传播的风险。与控辩双方平等原则相冲突体现在，控辩双方的硬件设备水平存在差别，相比辩方而言，控方具有内部远程讯问系统、智能语音识别软件等软件平台优势。与直接言词原则的冲突体现在，在线庭审中法官无法观察到庭审参与人的微表情与肢体语言，弱化了直接言词原则在庭审中的重要意义。此外，在线庭审缺乏庄重严肃性，无法确保庭审参与人言词的真实性，不利于当事人有效地进行质证，影响法官形成公允的心证。与此同时，在司法实务层面，刑事在线庭审也有一些亟待解决的问题，比如，各地法院适用在线庭审的案件范围泛化、程序选择受限制、救济保障不完善、线上庭审设备技术不成熟等。有些法院对超出司法解释规定的案件范围适用在线庭审，比如，在大量的普通程序中应用了在线庭审，将大量案件杂糅于“因其他特殊原因不宜线下审理的刑事案件”的兜底性条款中。被告人对于采用在线庭审只能在法院发出通知后被动选择同意与否，不能主动提出申请适用。被动程序选择的权利也没有得到有效的保障。司法解释未规定法院适用在线诉讼前征得公诉人、当事人、辩护人同意的具体程序，对于违反法律程序的情形，司法解释也未赋予公诉人、当事人、辩护人相应的救济权利。我国当前刑事在线庭审中大多数存在因技术、设备不成熟而影响在线庭审效果的情况，如出现网络延迟、信号丢失、存储数据乱码等问题。

针对我国刑事案件在线庭审存在的问题，我国未来的立法和司法解释有必要细化适用在线庭审的刑事案件范围，尤其是对“其他因特殊原因不宜线下审理的刑事案件”进行加以明确。未来的立法和司法解释有必要明确规定，对于涉及到未成年人的犯罪案件、被告人为盲、聋、哑人或者部分丧失、全部丧失行为能力的案件、被告人可能被宣判宣告无罪的案件，不宜适用在线庭审。未来的立法和司法解释应细化线上线下程序选择与转化规定，赋予被告人、罪犯对刑事案件在线庭审的主动选择权，在线庭审中若出现不符合在线庭审的情形，基于被告人、罪犯的申请或者法院依职权将在线庭审转为线下庭审。未来的立法和司法解释需要细化刑事在线庭审的具体流程，增加法院告知、设备网络测试等环节，为庭审参与人的权利救济提供有力的保障。此外，未来的司法实践还应当统一规范在线庭审平台、加强数据核验与安全保密、建设羁押场所智慧庭审室，为刑事案件在线庭审提供技术和物质保障。

With the rapid development of science and technology, the process of digital reform extends to the judicial field. Since China has long-standing dilemma and problem of “having too many cases and too few judges”, our country began to explore the usage of the Internet to empower judicial development, online trail for criminal cases came into being. Online criminal trail in China has gone through several stages, including independent exploration by the people’s court in each region, wide application nationwide, and systematic regulation by judicial interpretation and other normative documents.

As an innovative form of court hearing, online trial of criminal cases has its own advantages, it can improve trial efficiency, save judicial resources, and reduce the burden of court participants. However, online criminal trail conflicts with the principle of open trail, the principle of equality between prosecution and defense, and the principle of directness. The conflict with the principle of openness of the trail is reflected in the fact that ideally online trail should be conducive to the public to observe the trail and realize the openness of justice. But the current online trail situation is difficult to achieve social public participation in the audience. The network technology, hardware equipment development is not yet mature, affecting the quantity of the spectator public, the release of spectator privileges may exceed the capacity of the existing platform, affecting the effectiveness of the trail. At the same time, the low manageability of the discipline of the trail courtroom, the spectator recording screen will have the risk of leakage of the court information dissemination. Conflict with principle of equality between the prosecution and defense is reflected in the difference in the level of hardware equipment between the prosecution and the defense, in contrast to the defense, the prosecution also has the advantage of internal remote interrogation systems, intelligent voice recognition software and other software platforms. The conflict with the principle of direct speech is reflected in the fact that the judge cannot observe the micro-expressions and body language of the trial participants in the online trial, which weakens the importance of the principle of direct speech in the trial. In addition, the lack of solemnity and seriousness of the online trial does not ensure the authenticity of the trial participants' words, which is not conducive to effective cross-examination by the parties and affects the judge's ability to form a fair minded testimony. At the same time, at the level of judicial practice, there are also some urgent problems that need to be solved: scope of practical application of online court cases in courts around the world is generalized, the choice of procedures is restricted, the remedy protection is not perfect, and the technology of online trail equipment is not mature. Some courts apply online court hearing to cases beyond the types of cases stipulated in the judicial interpretation, for example, apply online trial in a large number of ordinary procedures, and generalize the application of online court hearings to a number of cases in the underwriting clause of “criminal cases that are not suitable for offline trail due to other special reasons”. Defendants can only passively choose to agree or disagree to the use of online court hearings after the court sends a notice, and cannot actively apply for the application, and the right to passive procedural choice is also not effectively guaranteed. The judicial interpretation does not provide for the court to apply online litigation before obtaining the consent of the public prosecutor, the defense of the specific procedures, for violations of legal procedures, the judicial interpretation also does not give the public prosecutor, the parties and the defense the corresponding right to relief. The vast majority of China’s current criminal online trail exist due to immature technology and equipment and affect the effectiveness of online court trails, such as network delays, signal loss, storage data messy and other problems.

In view of the problems of online court hearings in criminal cases in China, it is necessary for our future legislation and judicial interpretation to refine the scope of criminal cases to which online trail apply, in particular, clarify the “other criminal cases that are not suitable for offline hearings due to special reasons”. It is necessary for future legislation and judicial interpretations to clearly stipulate that it is inappropriate to apply online court hearings to cases involving crimes committed by minors, cases where the defendant is blind, deaf, mute, or partially or totally incapacitated, and cases where the defendant may be acquitted. Future legislation and judicial interpretations should refine the online and offline procedural options and transformation provisions, the defendant and the offender should be given the right to choose the initiative of the criminal online court hearing. During the process of online trail does not meet the circumstances of the online trail, based on the application of the defendant or the offender will convert the online court hearing into offline court hearing. Future legislation and judicial interpretations need to refine the specific process for online criminal court hearings, add links such as court notification and equipment network testing, and provide strong safeguards for court participants' rights relief. In addition, future judicial practice should also unify and standardize the online court hearing platform, strengthen data verification and security, and build intelligent court rooms in places of detention to provide technical and material safeguards for online court hearings of criminal cases.