The disposal of court cases will be hastened with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), said Supreme Court administrator Raul Villanueva.
With 500 cases being filed in court annually, the Supreme Court (SC) has implemented the use of AI in research and draft decisions, and according to Villanueva, the technology can also be used in legal monitoring.
The SC seeks that its judges, and eventually its justices, would be able to monitor the progress of their cases so that aging cases can be given priority.
He added that they are also developing technology to transcribe testimonies.
“We are developing voice to text transcription. While testimony is being given, it’s being recorded and transcribed. Hopefully we can develop AI that can translate already. Testimonies in dialect can be converted, for example, Ilokano to English.”
“Sen. Grace Poe supports these initiatives to use AI technology in court-related works,” he said, adding that the senator also highlighted the need for stringent safeguards and vetting.
“We will not rely too much on AI, but we can make use of the technology as an option to help check the human side of decisions, such as data, transcript and research information,” said Poe, chairperson of the Senate finance committee..
Court personnel can draw support from the AI technology in coming up with faster transcriptions, research and double-checking past decisions, laws or precedents that could be used in the resolution of cases.
Poe agreed with the statement of Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Mario Lopez who said that amid the existence of AI, the court remains “not only a court of law, but a court of equity,” adding “there is some humanity involved in the disposition of cases.”
“There are positives of employing AI, but in the end the humanitarian factor is always a consideration,” Poe remarked.
“We hope to have a legal landscape that will embrace technology responsibly for a more responsive and more accessible justice system for the Filipinos.”
