Coming out of Africa, Nicola Taljaard from Bowmans has pointed out the potential for AI to help solve the problem of undue delay in justice systems. Although AI appears as a potential remedy for countries like Brazil and India where the backlog is tens of millions of cases it is also a systemic tool. AI, as implemented in some places, can be an early selection system to resolve cases based on its application of precedent. Its application could be confined to small cases, or advisory roles but in either event it offers a very early means of resolution.
It is not surprising that countries are losing confidence in the ability of the traditional justice system to solve the chronic strain of delay infesting their justice systems and are opting to search for radical and (hopefully) enduring solutions. Estonia, according to Nicola Taljaard, has “introduced an AI-powered system for handling small claims disputes under €7,000.” The AI analyses the case details, applies the law, and renders a decision, with the option for dissatisfied parties to appeal to a human judge. Taljaard continues, “Cases that once dragged on for months are resolved in weeks.” Susskind reminds us that litigants don’t want lawyers; they want a just result.[1] Counsel and time costs are all but eliminated with Estonia’s small claims AI.
Singapore’s Community Justice and Tribunals System “uses AI to guide individuals through small claims cases.” Self-represented litigants are a difficulty for sophisticated judicial systems but this AI system handles paperwork and helps ordinary people use a judicial system that they would formerly need legal counsel to navigate.
Brazil has begun to radically implement AI into their justice system. Infamously one of the most backlogged legal systems in the world with 80 million cases in the queue, Brazil has implemented a new AI system named Victor. Victor “categorizes incoming cases and identifies those that can be dismissed based on precedent.” Victor allows judges to focus on the complex cases, spending less time on cases that don’t need their ruling. Furthermore, “Brazil has partnered with OpenAI to draft legal opinions.” All of this raises feelings of alarm and even nausea in most traditionalists. These worries have been amplified with the experience of AI ‘hallucinating’ precedents and lawyers coming up short when they have used it as a research tool. It is telling, however, that such a radical reform has been implemented in Brazil, given how that it has more cases than India clogging its system. A system in crisis, Brazil seems to consider the risks of AI mistakes to be lower than the risks of letting their system backlog grow even longer. A similar experience is working its way through medical diagnoses where AI represents a similar opportunity with similar risks and rewards.
Some of the uses of AI may well test the remaining jurisdiction of traditional courts but based on history traditionalists would be well advised to get ahead of the curve and incorporate AI in a way that is consistent with due process and fairness to all parties. For those of us concerned about timely justice AI represents a revolutionary tool that could be the information technology that truly deliver justice on time.
[1] Richard Susskind, Online Courts and the Future of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 48.
