Display functional judicial AI and related cyberjustice systems

The Resource Centre serves as a publicly accessible focal point for reliable information on AI systems and other key cyberjustice tools applied in the digital transformation of the judiciary. It shall help to gain an overview of such systems and tools, providing a starting point for further examination on their risks and benefits for professional and end-users in line with the “European ethical Charter on the use of AI in judicial systems and their environment” and the “Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law.”

Bring clarity to the discussion on AI

The Resource Centre brings value to the professional and academic discussion about AI by making it less abstract and more concrete.  It helps to distinguish between the actual application of judicial systems and conceptual, project or pilot stages of AI initiatives.

Factual presentation, no endorsement of specific systems

The entries in the Resource Centre are based on the information given by relevant authorities, or available in the public domain. The Resource Centre does not imply any affiliation, endorsement, or recommendation of the presented systems by the CEPEJ or the Council of Europe in any form whatsoever.

Be as exhaustive as possible for Europe

The Centre aims to be as exhaustive as possible for Europe, with regular updates and reviews to ensure that it is up to date. Systems from other regions and countries are also displayed as much as possible.

Serve as starting point for further discussion of single applications in line with the European ethical Charter on the use of AI in judicial systems and their environment

The Resource Centre serves as a starting point for detailed examinations of specific applications with a view to their compliance with European standards of democracy, human rights and rule of law. Relevant authorities, researchers and the interested public are invited to use the displayed information for that purpose.

Help bilateral exchange and mutual learning of authorities

The Resource Centre also serves authorities tasked with the digital transformation to gain an overview of available systems in relation to their main field of application. It can serve as a benchmark for comparison and inspiration and stimulate mutual learning through bilateral exchanges with peers on the practical experience with specific systems.

Wide definition of AI

The Centre is considering AI systems in the widest sense, as there are differing and evolving definitions of AI. Most common element is the notion of data processing systems that perform functions normally associated with human intelligence. More distinct definitions can be drawn based on the system’s specific functions in combination with the applied techniques and approaches. Whereas the range of functions is relatively wide the applied techniques and approaches are not always known or cannot be further verified at this stage for the Resource Centre.

Acknowledging the methodological challenges, and following a user centric perspective, the Centre is focusing on the main area of application of different systems.  In combination with further details on the specific function and the applied techniques and approaches it should give the user a clear indication of the system’s AI relevance and associated risks.

Explicitly, the Centre also contains electronic systems that cannot be considered AI but are applied in the same area and are key in the digital transformation of the judiciary.

Monitoring of systems used in the judiciary

The Resource Centre focuses on systems of the public sector, implemented by or of relevance for the judiciary. This might include publicly available general-purpose AI Systems (e.g. ChatGPT, Co-Pilot) but does not include systems geared towards lawyers or law firms (LegalTech).

Such systems can be found on numerous websites, for example (non exhaustive): Stanford CodeX, Legaltech Hub, LawtechUK Ecosystem tracker, Derecho Practico,  Legal Tech Verzeichnis.

Moreover, AI systems targeting the private sector are monitored and discussed by other actors, for example in the “Global Report on the State of Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice” or the “CMS Expert Guide to Digital Litigation”.

Focusing on key Cyberjustice Systems

E-filing systems, public electronic case law databases and electronic land or criminal registers can be considered advanced Cyberjustice systems and are often a necessity for further AI processing. Nevertheless, their potential risks do not fall within the scope of AI regulation. Moreover, nearly all Council of Europe member States provide such systems, leading to only limited added value in their listing. Detailed information on the deployment and usage of digital tools in the judiciary, such as  e-filing and electronic case management systems, electronic registers and databases of court decisions can be found in the individual country profiles provided under the biennial CEPEJ Evaluation and aggregated under the CEPEJ ICT index. 

ECN correspondents

The entries are collected through the CEPEJ’s European Cyberjustice Network (ECN) members. The network consists of individuals of nearly all CoE member States and observers, tasked with the digitalisation of national judicial systems. The information is complemented by other publicly available sources. Even though the data collection is systematic an exhaustive overview cannot be guaranteed, due to fragmentation of initiatives down to court level.

Classification and review by AIAB

The collected information is discussed and categorised by the CEPEJ’s Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board (AIAB).

Reliance on source

The Centre relies on the publicly available information on specific systems. A review is conducted only with a view to the categorisation in line with the Centre’s structure and the decision for publication. The aim is not to examine if a specific application is AI or not.

Regular updates

The Centre is updated on a quarterly basis. New entries and missing information are added, and potentially inaccurate information is corrected.

Possibility to submit additional systems

The CEPEJ welcomes the submission of information on additional systems that should be listed in the Resource Centre via cepej (at) coe.int.

Complete, relevant, and verifiable information

The criteria for publication include the completeness, relevance, and verifiability of information. To be considered, a system must have a public source or official reference that allows for its existence to be verified. Exceptionally, internal systems without a direct source are published if the relevant authorities assure their existence.  It must be indicated if the system is mature and functional or still in conceptional or project stage, and relevant to the judiciary. Systems in а piloting phase may be included if they have significant outreach.  Priority is given to systems within the CoE member States, but systems from other regions and countries are not excluded.

The main categories of the Resource Centre

1. Name of the system in English and native language
2. Short description including underlying technology
3. Main field of application
   1. Document search, review and Large-scale Discovery

These solutions create a searchable collection of case-law descriptions, legal text and other insights to be shared with legal experts for further analysis and large-scale discovery on high volumes of electronic documents. Examples are search engines with interfaces applied to case law and judicial files.

1. 2. Online Dispute Resolution

These solutions cover technologies used for the resolution of disputes between parties with limited human intervention, which can be achieved through hardware and/or software. It concerns mainly Alternative Dispute Resolution, but also dispute resolution in the context of courts.

1. 3. Prediction of Litigation Outcomes

These solutions learn from large datasets to identify patterns in the data that are consequently used to visualise, simulate or predict new litigation outcomes.

1. 4. Decision Support

These solutions facilitate or automate stages in the decision-making processes in the justice systems. So far, there have been no reports of fully automated decision-making process without any human supervision. Examples include systems summarising texts, extracting specific information in applications, calculating scales for sentencing and compensation.

1. 5. Anonymisation and Pseudonymisation

These solutions are used for removing and replacing identifying information such as personal data of court users in judgments.

1. 6. Triaging, allocation and workflow automation

These solutions are used to facilitate or complete some tasks and activities during the lifecycle of the proceedings within the Case Management System, minimising the need for human input. Examples are: registration and allocation of court matters, assigning levels of priority to tasks or individuals to determine the most effective order in which to deal with them.

1. 7. Recording, transcription and translation

These solutions are capable of recording, recognising and analysing speech as well as written text and communicating back. Their main use for courts is in voice/speech recognition and transcription of court proceedings as well as translation.

1. 8. Information and assistance services

These solutions provide individuals with information on services available in the justice systems and link individuals to the services and opportunities that are available. Examples are chatbots or other interfaces accessible for the public.

3. Secondary field of application (as before)

4. Year of implementation

5. Country of implementation
6. Coverage (Court specific, local, national, regional, international)

7. Link to an official public source/reference of the system

8. Indication if the system is implemented by a public body, by academia or by a private entity

9. Main target group/audience of the system : (judges and clerks, prosecutors and clerks, management, lawyers, (potential) court users)

10. Status of the system (concept/planned, pilot/beta version, functional)