Where the AI Act draws the line
When the IBA panel asked me to say a few words about the EU AI Act, one question stood out: what does it mean for courts? The Act treats certain AI uses in the administration of justice and democratic processes as high risk because they can pose risks to democracy and the rule of law. An example is a system that helps a judicial authority reach a ruling with legal effect. Such systems must meet requirements designed to prevent or reduce those risks, including risk management, data quality, technical documentation, registration, transparency, and human oversight. As public authorities and entities providing public services, courts and judiciaries must also conduct a fundamental rights impact assessment for high-risk systems.
Support the judge, not replace them
AI can support judicial decision-making and judicial independence, but it must not replace the person making the final decision. The Act also draws a distinction between that kind of assistance and purely ancillary administrative work that does not affect the administration of justice in individual cases. Examples of the latter include anonymizing or pseudonymizing judicial decisions, documents, or data; facilitating communication between personnel; and carrying out administrative tasks. The high-risk classification should not extend to systems used solely for those ancillary activities.
What are courts using today?
To see how courts in Council of Europe member states are using technology for administration and decision support, I turned to the most recent CEPEJ evaluation report. If CEPEJ’s “case management” category is treated as ancillary administration, it has the highest score on the ICT Deployment Index: 5.66. If “decision support” includes assistance in reaching rulings with legal effect, its score is much lower: 2.64. Those comparisons depend on how the categories are interpreted. CEPEJ says the figures show that countries are still focused on basic digital infrastructure, such as e-filing and case registration.
The next wave is taking shape
The EU Justice Scoreboard reports that nine out of 27 EU member countries report using AI for “core activities”. The current CEPEJ evaluation cycle also shows that AI is being used in areas such as class actions, automatic anonymization of judgments and specialized translation. These developments may become more visible in the next evaluation cycle. For now, the contrast is striking: while the possibilities are expanding, the foundations of court digitalization are still being built. Those statistics are dated 2022. CEPEJ says it will publish its next evaluation in December 2026, with more recent information on the use of AI.
