#9233: Fix json.loads({}) to return a dict (instead of a list), when _json is not available.
diff --git a/Lib/json/decoder.py b/Lib/json/decoder.py
index b9745f7..eeebf45 100644
--- a/Lib/json/decoder.py
+++ b/Lib/json/decoder.py
@@ -161,6 +161,12 @@
             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))