I noticed an article this morning --in an Indian paper actually-- remarking on how courts in the Chinese city of Nanjing will use SMS services to deliver information to people in the area:

The court can provide basic information on lodging a lawsuit, court notices and even case-specific information to those who request it, officials with the Intermediate People's Court of Nanjing, Capital of eastern Jiangsu Province, said.

This is a first for China, Xinhua news agency reported.

In the mainland, access to trial information has traditionally been difficult and only a small fraction of the general public has any litigation know-how.

In Nanjing, people can send a text message request to the court's information center, but access to specific case information is restricted to those involved in the case.

The court gives both parties to a litigation an 11-figure code number which they use to make their text message request, the report said.

Well, I'm not sure how useful a tiny SMS message will be for providing anything much more detailed than scheduling information. Also, even though information in specific cases will be limited to people directly involved, I can foresee a few security implications with SMS, even if numbers are registered with the court in advance.

Tell the bastard I want half!

Still, as a mechanism for delivery of public services, telephone services, including SMS, probably have more potential in China than the Internet does. The Internet service is generally widespread only in the highly developed cities, and reaches about 123 million people, according to CNNIC, the China Network Information Center. That's less than 10 percent of the population.

Mobile phones, on the other hand, are carried by over 420 million people, or nearly a third of the population, and reach a much wider demographic than the Internet. So even though Nanjing is a developed city where Internet access will be more common than in many regions, its courts might be beating a path for public services elsewhere in the country.