by Sascha Dalen Gilhuijs
EEEI is an observer and in that capacity present at the plenary meetings of the CEPEJ. This plenary meeting had a special format; it started with four workshops about the examples of implemented AI in the service of justice.
Marek Swierczynski, prof of law and member of the CEPEJ advisory board, moderated the workshops.
The first speaker was Jan Spoenle, judge of the appeal court of Stuttgart, Germany, on AI support for the processing of mass trials. The background was the mass case around Dieselgate. Mass claims are predestined for automation: comparable cases can be grouped by parameters, parameters are defined by judges and can be found and extracted. Copying and pasting is work that needs no legal training and can easily be replaced by a computer. The solution is called OLGA; the higher regional court assistant. The template decisions that Olga produces can be individualized with parameters and the judges decide after checking the facts of the case. OLGA has no interference with decision-making. Olga is an intelligent research assistant. It enables an overview of cases and intelligent scheduling, and it saves time-consuming copying and pasting.
This workshop was followed by Pedro Alexandre Monteiro Almeida, Head of the international cooperation unit, Ministry of Justice of Portugal. He introduces a communication platform or information platform to inform citizens to find their way in the legal maze. It forwards citizens to online platforms.
Anonymization of court decisions through AI was next as a workshop given by Jacques Buhler, deputy Director general of the Swiss Federal Tribunal. It is all about finding a balance between protection of personal data and transparency of justice. But most of all, it is an example of how a time-consuming and tedious job is effectively performed by the use of AI.
The next workshop was by Spain: from voice to text application. Javier Hernandez, Deputy Director General for Digital Transformation Ministry of Justice of Spain explains how accurate and efficient the application is and shares the recent results. In Spain, the recording of the court sessions is the legal basis in the proceedings. Therefore, the transcripts should be very accurate.
The plenary meeting’s agenda was packed with other topics on the effectiveness and efficiency of Justice. The president of the GT Eval group, Jasa Vrabec made the remark that we must seek balance between quality and efficiency, it seems that we give a heavy weight to efficiency. We need to keep focus on the citizens for whom we work.
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