#9233: Fix json.loads({}) to return a dict (instead of a list), when _json is not available.

Lib/json/decoder.py

@@ -161,6 +161,12 @@ def JSONObject(s_and_end, strict, scan_once, object_hook, object_pairs_hook,
             nextchar = s[end:end + 1]
         # Trivial empty object
         if nextchar == '}':
+            if object_pairs_hook is not None:
+                result = object_pairs_hook(pairs)
+                return result, end
+            pairs = {}
+            if object_hook is not None:
+                pairs = object_hook(pairs)
             return pairs, end + 1
         elif nextchar != '"':
             raise ValueError(errmsg("Expecting property name", s, end))