The Council of Europe’s 2nd international hackathon, Digital Future of Justice 2.0, was held on 15-17 November 2024 in Bologna. The goal of the hackathon was to develop digital solutions that would help connect European judicial systems. Twenty-six young innovators from Cyprus, France, Italy, Norway, and Romania participated in the event.
The AI-based solutions that they developed were intended to assist legal professionals in comparing court cases across Europe through identification of common features in the relevant decisions. The aim was to empower judges and legal practitioners to learn from similar cases and produce better decisions. This, in turn, would create more consistency in legal approaches across Europe and encourage closer cooperation.
The need for these innovative digital solutions stems from the increasing scope and complexity of legal issues such as environmental protection, climate change, and cross-border privacy concerns. These issues often lead to judicial cases with cross-jurisdictional elements, making it more challenging to handle them effectively.
Seven teams from five countries competed in the hackathon, mentored by experts in legal systems, data, and information technology. They combined legal tech, software development, machine learning, user experience design, multilingual models, and legal expertise in their solutions. A jury of seven technology and legal experts assessed the solutions based on criteria such as:
- Innovation and originality
- Feasibility and applicability
- Tool performance
- Content production and translation accuracy
- Compliance with data security and standards on privacy and AI
The winning team was The Justice Indexers from Italy, with team CaseConnect from Italy placing second and teams AIRo from Romania and MapMyJustice from France tied third.
The Council of Europe organised the Hackathon in cooperation with the Institute of Legal Informatics and Judicial Systems and the University of Bologna, with the support by Kreativdistrikt.
The Council of Europe is committed to providing opportunities for students and researchers to develop innovative solutions for human rights and justice.
For information on the development of more accessible and fair legal systems : Home - Digital Future of Justice 2.0 (digitaljustice.tech)
