The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Good morning. My name is Eliamani Laltaika. I am a judge of the High Court of Tanzania and a moderator for this session. A warm welcome to our online viewers, and we shall start by a very brief introduction of our fantastic speakers here.
We have among us: Honorable Justice Adel Maged is the Vice President of the Court of Cassation in Egypt and will talk to us about principles of judging in the face of AI, with a focus on criminal justice. He heads ‑‑ he presides over a criminal justice court. Justice Maged?
>> ADEL MAGED: Yes.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: We have, Ms. Tatevik Grigoryan is an Associate Programme Specialist, Digital Policies and Transformation at UNESCO. We all know that UNESCO has been playing a fantastic role in capacity building for judges on AI over the years.
We have Gabriella Marcelja, CEO of SG Impact Ventures AG, Switzerland. And her current portfolio puts her at the centre of what is happening in terms of cybersecurity, AI and the legal process. She will talk to us about the impact of automation in the legal process.
We also have with us Professor Milos. He is a Professor of Cybersecurity and Diplomacy and will talk about judicial independence and sovereignty. So, that is my team, briefly, that is on site.
After their five‑minutes talk, we will go back to the online speakers, and I'm very, very much honoured this time to introduce two fantastic judges. Just like Justice Adel from Egypt, we also have a long‑serving judge from Zimbabwe, and we also have a scholar who is Head of Copyright at ARIPO. Both of these speakers will speak to us from Zimbabwe. And I will welcome interventions from judges across the world. Some of them have actually sent me texts, saying, please, judge, when I raise my hand, please let me give an intervention.
To start our kind of attractive title, really, because everyone was excited to come and hear judges saying they use AI. Probably that expectation is not going to be met. There is this fantastic book here, "Judges, Technology, and Artificial Intelligence: The Artificial Judge," is a work by Tania Sourdin, an Australian scholar who has been in the forefront of research on impact of AI in the justice system. And the professor tells different stories about how AI is used by courts around the world. For example, he indicates that AI is used for administrative automation ‑‑ scheduling, dockets, managing, e‑filing. And I can attest to this because this is what we do in Tanzania.
We no longer have manual filing. We no longer have manual scheduling. This is all done by AI. It's also used for legal research and predictive analytics. Tools like LexisNexis, intelligence uses predictive analytics by Westlaw. The U.S. is getting its way through many other parts of the world. It's used cautiously, sparingly, in some eastern countries to assist judges in sentencing. It is also used in online dispute resolutions for small civil claims and traffic and accessibility enhancement, evidence, e‑discovery, and lastly, some judges in some countries use it for judgment drafting, to kind of tell them how to go about, after summarizing all the texts.
They say no size fits all. If this book was written with examples mainly from the West, probably that is not what is happening in other parts of the world.
At this juncture, I welcome Justice Adel Maged to tell us his experiences and how to avoid algorithmic injustice in a criminal court. The floor is yours, Honorable Justice Adel Maged.
>> ADEL MAGED: Thank you, good morning, everybody. Allow me, Your Honor, to thank the administration, the Secretariat, for allowing this justice track to start efficiently. I hope it will expand. And I thank you personally, our moderator, for your efforts to make this track happen. Thank you.
I would like to start by rephrasing this question: Can AI replace the human element in court? Because we are seeing now that AI is replacing many jobs. It's a reality. So, my question to all of you: Are judges endangered species? I am serious now, because we are starting to hear about judgments in some jurisdictions, deployed and issued by artificial intelligence. And some of the judgments have been appealed already before higher courts. I'm not going to mention specific jurisdiction. But now it is a case that we are studying.
And in Egypt, for example, in our criminal justice system ‑‑ should I... In Egypt, in our criminal justice system, it is possible that some litigants would submit evidence that are created by AI. In this case, what are you going to do? And you know, with the deepfakes, some videos, you can distinguish whether it is correct or real or not. What can we do? This is a question.
Another question. Litigants themselves, the parties, can use AI to determine their strategy in submission of the cases and litigation as well, because they can feed AI with all the cases issued by a certain judge in a certain jurisdiction to predict his judgment. This could happen. So, we have some risks from AI.
I have no doubt that AI have great benefits. We can use AI in legal research. But this has been a case in the U.S. If you are using AI in legal research, for lawyers, and AI, with some hallucination, brought some cases which do not exist. What is the case here? Who is responsible when it comes to AI deployment in the justice system? Who is responsible for the act of the AI? It is not the AI. It is not the company. It is the person who are using AI. So, if a judge or a lawyer can use AI to collect precedence, to extract provisions, then it is his own responsibility to verify this precedent or jurisprudence as well.
If I am going to talk about a criminal justice system, I will ‑‑ criminal justice in general ‑‑ I will distinguish between civil justice and criminal justice, because in civil justice, it is possible to accept AI in several forms. For example, AI can be used in the administration of justice to allocate cases to judges. But in criminal justice, we have to accept AI with caution.
Because, for example, when we are using AI in criminal justice system, we have also to distinguish between Anglo‑Saxon criminal justice system, criminal system and civil law system like in Egypt. In the U.S., in the UK, they use judiciary in their system. It is different in our system. We don't use judiciary. It is a conviction of the judge himself. So, according to our established principles and rules, as according to decisions, the Supreme Court of Egypt, for example. In criminal proceedings, the conviction should be based on the judge's belief himself, and he shouldn't base his conviction on other things or person's opinion.
So, what about evidence submitted to him in a form of AI? What about the judges who search for precedence or to conclude their judgments with AI? This will contradict, of course, with an established principle in the Egyptian legal system, in the Latin legal system, and other legal systems which are conviction or innocence is based on the judge's conviction.
Another principle, fundamental legal principle in legal justice is the presumption of innocence. We have been hearing about AI systems and applications that are used to predict recidivism. For example, reoffending, for example. So, it has been used in some jurisdictions for judges to decide on the acquittal of a person or sending him to jail, for example, with AI. Is this permissible? According to our justice system, it is not permissible because it contradicts the principle of the presumption of innocence. Do I have time?
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Yes, a few seconds.
>> ADEL MAGED: Thank you. So, I would like to conclude by the following. AI is acceptable in administrative procedures before the Courts, because it doesn't touch upon the person's culpability, innocence. But when it comes to criminal procedures, we have to be cautious while using AI. Also, in all justice systems to use AI, my belief ‑‑ and this is what I am keeping demanding ‑‑ we need legislation. We can't leave it to judges or lawyers to present AI evidence without rules. This is what I believe, and this is what I have repeated in many sessions in this forum. That legislation is important.
And I would like to conclude with a general comment, if you don't mind, because I have attended this forum and I was hearing about this contradiction of opinion about the governance of Internet. But I don't hear about regulation. If we would like to govern the Internet, AI, or technologies, we need legislation. Thank you.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you, judge. Thank you very much. You can get from the speaker that that is somehow a conservative approach, and we need all this. There are certainly other judges who are swift into adoption of AI, including new judges, young judges. They are trying to experiment generative AI to other tools in a much, much speedier way than our more experienced colleagues. How do we strike the right balance?
We strike the right balance by getting tools developed. My second speaker is from UNESCO, and UNESCO has been observing from a distance how judges interact with technology, and they come as an empire to try to put some guideposts on how to approach this very, very thick forest called AI and judging. Ms. Grigoryan will enlighten us on what exactly UNESCO's been doing in the past few years. And at the end, if time allows, we will give a glimpse of a few slides to show.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thanks very much. I wanted to, if possible, to show just a few slides just now. Thanks for the introduction. And thank you so much, Judge, for your insightful input.
So, just to give you an overview of how we started and why we started working with the judiciary. And you mentioned a few examples of how the AI is used in the judiciary system, and I believe you also referred to the book that draws mainly on the experience of the West. But I will now present the survey that we conducted among the judicial practitioners that was conducted. We had respondents from about 96 countries.
And how we started working on the AI. Some of you, or hopefully, many of you know that UNESCO, overall, in 2021, launched/adopted recommendations on ethics of the artificial intelligence, which was adopted by UNESCO's 193 Member States. And we have over 70 countries who are using it to assess the situation on the ground. And following this, in 2022, UNESCO then launched an AI and the Rule of Law programme with the aim to support judiciary practitioners to be able to better integrate the AI into their work. And the goal is, as I mentioned, to engage the stakeholders within the justice system to ‑‑ around the global discussion on the application of AI, and obviously, its impact on the rule of law.
So, I would like to draw your attention to this survey that I mentioned, which we conducted in 2023. We had over 560 judicial actors from 96 countries, and the topics we covered were mainly on the use of AI in the judicial context, the perception of arising risks and the need for the regulation.
And here, you mentioned. I think it covers already ‑‑ the responses cover what you have already mentioned, as well. You can see that, for example, only 11% of the respondents reported that they use AI on a daily basis, but many of the respondents don't ‑‑ at the time of the survey ‑‑ hadn't used it. But to sum these numbers up, 44% of the respondents said they were using ChatGPT and other AI chatbots for work‑related activities.
And here you can see the purpose of the use of AI, which was ‑‑ of these tools ‑‑ which was mainly used for searching, drafting documents, brainstorming, and the other aspects you can see as well. And the other aspect that the survey covered was also this perception that the perceptions associated with the risk were mainly largely the risk associated with the quality of the outputs, the data protection, and copyright also, of course capacity. We don't know the resource of the data that is generated, so this poses serious risk.
And I mentioned that 44% of the respondents were already using the AI, but only 9% said that they received training on how to use it. So, this gap on the training led ‑‑ and actually, one more thing. You can see here the countries that actually have guidelines for the use of generative AI in court and tribunals.
So, to respond to this need, UNESCO then developed these various approaches to support the judicial actors. So, overall, UNESCO has this AI ‑‑ sorry, Judges Initiative, which is a ten‑year programme launched in 2021, where we discuss issues related to freedom of expression, safety of journalists, and there, this programme has since reached to 35,000 people. And we added then to this component also the AI component, which has already reached to 8,000 judicial practitioners.
We also launched this Global Toolkit on AI and the Rule of Law, which aims to support the judicial practitioners in these efforts. I'm aware of time, so I'll go through quickly.
We also have a massive online course, which is for the judicial practitioners, which is still open and people can register and use the tool, which is completely free of charge. And in 2026, in the beginning, we are launching a ‑‑ planning to launch even an updated Mook, which cover aspects on data protection, cybersecurity, and other emerging topics and persisting topics. Here is just a glimpse of also in‑person trainings, national and regional, both in person and online.
I will go through quickly. So, now we also, in May 2025, we launched ‑‑ you saw that there aren't many countries who have guidelines for judicial system on the use of AI, so that's why there was a call for UNESCO to also provide/produce this comprehensive set of guidelines, which we did public a draft in May 2025, which has purpose for this, giving guidelines to support the judicial system to use AI in a manner that aligns with the principles of human rights and the rule of law. And there, we have a set of principles that can guide these efforts. Conscious of time, I will not go through all the guidelines, but also just to mention that we also published a draft in May after the decision of the Constitutional Court of Colombia. It was the first country to adopt these guidelines for the use of AI in the judicial system. And then we have a few other countries that are already considering this.
I mentioned the Mook. One other thing before we leave. Very useful tool also for the judicial practitioners. We will also launch a repository of AI tools, which are verified AI tools which can be used also to further support the work in the judicial system. I'll stop here, if any questions. I'll be happy to take. Thank you.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Another clap. Thank you very much. We are moving on. Gabriella is next to me here, and she shares both the technical and legal aspects of our presentation. And you will agree with me that everything that has been said by UNESCO is changing very quickly. The survey taken in 2023 may not necessarily reflect what is happening now. And I welcome Gabriella to tell us what are the current risks and how can we mitigate them as we go along launching different tools.
>> GABRIELLA MARCELJA: Thank you very much for the invitation. I will perhaps skip parts that were already discussed, because simply, we all know that preventing errors to human oversight or fatigue or we want to be quicker, cheaper, just boost efficiency, of course. We have AI being used in different ways, from reviewing contracts to administrative tasks and scheduling courts, et cetera.
So, here, what we want to focus on is also the concept of AI as a non‑futuristic idea, right, so it's not something that's new. It's already in the courtrooms, as we've seen. And the question is really, it's not like an if we use it, but how we use it, right? And the question is really how to make it adjust.
In this sense, when we talk about judiciary and AI, we do have to focus on security risks posed by LLMs, especially in the context of insider threats. So, this means the system appears aligned and cooperative, but basically may act against institutional interests. And so, here we are also talking about trust, about control, about oversight in the use of AI.
Briefly, on the flip side of this coin is that we do have risks like historical biases. You can think of the case in Italy, the Compass System case in the U.S. We have hallucinations and manipulations that are even having situations where there was a report of a U.S. lawyer quoting non‑existent case law suggested by ChatGPT. And of course, he was disbarred from the Bar Association.
So, then we have the lack of transparency, so the black box problem is still there. We have the General Federal Constitutional Court that ruled against the use of the so‑called Palantir Gotham surveillance system, a software used by the police, citing ‑‑ so, they stopped is because they cited its lack of transparency and violation of privacy. So, the real danger here is really that judges and legal professionals might over-rely on AI outputs today, and so, without, perhaps, having this legal, or critical ‑‑ let's put it that way ‑‑ scrutiny.
This is also a phenomenon that today we call the so‑called automation bias, and we saw it as a real‑world problem in the UK's Post Office scandal. So, this is something that we see a situation where flawed computer evidence was basically leading to wrongful convictions.
So, there is, of course, as also the judges said before, there is huge regulatory gap. So, technology, of course, moves much faster than the legal sector is. And so, here, what we are seeing, also, is that we lack the understanding even like of what's ethical, what's not ethical, so the guidelines are, of course, being drafted, but it needs to be done, perhaps, like in line also with the technical expertise at the moment.
What we have also is the so‑called moving of the human judgment problem, which is basically a little bit of the idea of having courts or online sentencing, like the First Metaverse court hearing that happened in Colombia in 2023, which actually raises serious concern about removing this human judgment from the system, especially in criminal cases, so perhaps for the administrative part, that wouldn't be a huge issue, but for the criminal one, it definitely does.
So, when it comes to how the future looks like and what we can do, we definitely need to always keep in mind that AI is just a tool to assist us, and it's not something that can be a replacement for human judgment.
We do have the EU AI Act, which is a step in the right direction, I would say, because in any case, it's already classifying AI systems used in the judiciary as high risk, and basically, imposing strict regulations on that part. There is also the initiative of the European Ethical Charter on AI in Judicial Systems that basically provides crucial principles on that.
And since we are in a judging panel, I just want to conclude here with some projects that are interesting to explore further, is the cross‑justice and facility lex that they are basically working on AI tools to assist judges with legal research and judicial cooperation.
There are a few other cases that I'm not going to get into, but just to conclude, I would say that the real challenge right now is really how we integrate AI in a wise and ethical way so that the human element really does not define justice, but it actually just supports us as a tool. Thank you.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you very much, Gabriella, for that. To wind up this part on onsite speakers, we all know that judiciaries are still very conservative. A precedent from one country is not binding in another. You only follow what your Supreme Court said, not what the Supreme Court of some other country said. To explain this further, we will invite Professor of Cybersecurity and Cyberdiplomacy to tell us, how can countries still maintain their sovereignty and their judicial independence, even though the tools we are developing and AI, and science in general, is actually universal. Welcome, speaker.
>> Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here and this is an interesting topic and we wish deeply to understand how on international levels it should be managed. The main question, speaking about judiciary engagement, is sovereignty, because there is a different, a lot of legal models in different countries, of course, and we should maintain that area. A system should be according to national legislative framework. So, when we speak about judiciary engagement, we should count on legal, geopolitical, and geological sovereignty. So, if we use some generative AI systems, I think it is a good idea to start with research and so on and so on, but we cannot rely on decisions based in this artificial intelligence model, especially if you have different technological zones. And I always like to mention, the world is not unipolar anymore. So, we have different fragmentation processes across the globe.
For example, something is really, you know, favorable in some parts of the world. For example, in the United States, in Europe, in Asia, in Latin America. So, when we speak about some aspects, speak about human rights. What is favorable in China, in Russia, in the United Kingdom, the United States? We have different views.
So, speaking about AI tools, I think we need human‑centric approach to be in position to control outcome of artificial intelligence systems. And there is a question, of course, who trained the system? When we speak about LLM models, about, you know, sources, we get into AI systems, it's a big question, you know. When you have different technological zones ‑‑ for example, Western Europe and technological zone, Russian technological zone, Chinese technological zone ‑‑ it's about sovereignty and who trained these models.
For example, when I ask some question in Western AI model about Taiwan, and in China maybe I'll get a different answer. For example, if I ask some Chinese about (?) I will get an answer that Taiwan is a part of China. And this is, we are speaking about modalities and how in some countries, we see different approaches and different narratives, and that's very important. So, maintaining sovereignty and different aspects, speaking about legal, about geopolitical, about technical systems, it's a key.
And when we speak about global cooperation, definitely we need global cooperation. This is a key. But sovereignty starts with informed national decision making. So, I mean, the resolution of this issue is to strengthen national capacity, speaking about artificial intelligence. And many countries, especially in Europe, hear in the North, we have really good and strong institutes here and many countries work on this issue, because I think that the path is from national to global. So, we need to ensure that national capacities at the same level or so, you know, to be able to integrate with global, with global interfaces, I would say on that way.
And when we speak about sovereignty, about, you know, judiciary engagement and in general about justice, it's a question, what is justice now? And do we have, you know, common approach speaking about some, you know, I would say resolution. So, to conclude, I think that we can't fully rely on artificial intelligence system, especially on a system like ChatGPT or some different ‑‑ there are a lot of chatbots. But we should invest a lot of time and energy and resources and money to train models and to make specific AI tools which will be aligned with national legislation, and that's the key. So, human responsibility should stay in the centre, at least until we achieve some progress. And of course, all tools and all AI systems should be closely monitored and analysed, speaking about outcomes.
So, my conclusion in one sentence is that we can't rely 100% on AI tools until further development. Thank you very much.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our Part 1. And Part 2 is led by three speakers. I'm sorry, last time I said two, but there are actually three. And these are: Mr. Mohamed Farahat is a lawyer and legal consultant. He is very much known in the IGF cycles, doing wonderful work with the North Africa IGF. He was here ‑‑ he attended last year and made several presentations.
We have Maureen Fondo. She is Head of Copyright and Related Rights at African Regional Intellectual Property Organization. And we will conclude with a presentation by an equally senior judge. We started with a very senior judge from Egypt. We will conclude with a senior judge from Zimbabwe on evidential aspects, how AI is managing around things related to deepfake and other generated forms of evidence that are presented before judges and how to navigate through. A warm welcome to Mr. Mohamed Farahat, all the way from Egypt. You have five minutes.
>> MOHAMED FARAHAT: Okay, so, thanks for the invitation. And I think one of the main questions we will come to speak about deploying AI in the judicial system, to speak about judicial device. There is a lot of points, I think we need days and days to speak about using or deploying AI system in the judicial system. And as our colleague from UNESCO, there is a lot of tools you can, like back to normal.
But I think, like to speak about the digital divide or AI divide in between the global and the North/South, because I think it's very, very important in our talk, because as to repeat back to what the Honorable Justice Adel mentioned at the beginning about the benefit of using AI in courts and the legal system in general.
So, AI's potential to revolutionize a justice system, from predictive policing or to legal research, case management, contract reviewing. Of course, I will speak about the judges because I am there also, so let me also to involve the lawyers. And they start to rely on using AI to do their work.
And even along with the sentencing recommendations, there is a lot of cases that the judges now are just using AI asking for recommendation about the sentence based on the facts presented in the case.
But however, we must consider ‑‑ (background speaking)
However, we must consider the existing global inequalities and its impact. So, if this crisis between Global North and Global South has effect or impact on using AI, I think it's, yes, it's a fact. Why? Because, of course, when you speak about AI divide or digital divide between the Global North and South, it's not mainly about Internet access. It's not Internet access issue anymore, but also now it's covered all the web or the technologies.
For example, if we come speak about the infrastructure, this one officer, like a clear example that illustrates any policy between the Global North and the Global South. Infrastructure in many countries in the Global South, if we speak like in Africa, some countries in Asia, some countries in the middle region, this is between ‑‑ this infrastructure or lack of digital infrastructure, and also, the electricity and the power, high‑speed Internet and the advanced computing resources that are necessary to develop and deploy, or even to using the AI technology. So, this infrastructure is very needed. When we come to deciding to use AI in the judicial process, this sector is one of the ‑‑ most of countries now, like for example in Egypt ‑‑ Egypt has adopted the second version of AI Strategy, and they added the justice sector to be one of the sectors that should be deploying AI and using it. And I think we have some programmes. I think Judge Maged can cover that.
And also, one other point to illustrate the inequalities between Global North and South is the data availability and quality. And as our colleague spoke about this cybersecurity and sovereignty, and here he mentioned that it clearly strains models LLMs. So, I think it's also one of the problems, because the availability of the data and the quality. And I think the quality of the data is one of the main points when we come to using AI in the courts. And who will train this data or these LLMs, these applications? Who is training? It is western countries.
When we come to, we cannot just come and apply this technology in the South countries or in African countries. Why? Because I think ‑‑ or most, there is a lot of cases that witnessed, this technology is based on bias. So, I don't speak about ‑‑ I will not go into details, but I think the data and how these models are trained, I think it could make some differential between ‑‑
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you, thank you.
>> MOHAMED FARAHAT: Sorry?
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: We appreciate your intervention. Your five minutes is over. Thank you very much. We will probably get back to it during Q&A.
>> MOHAMED FARAHAT: Thank you. Thank you.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you very much. Next in our list is Doctor of Philosophy candidate in Intellectual Property and Head of Copyright to the ARIPO. And we know that economies serve a concept called externalities, that you may plan something, but it affects others. We invite specifically Ms. Fondo, who is a lawyer and also doing some work in copyright, which touches on economics and rights of different groups, to tell us what the use of AI in the judiciary can mean to other groups, such as lawyers, civil society organizations, creators, authors. Will the use of ChatGPT, for example, deprive rights of well‑known authors of law books? It is idiocy. We do not want to confine our discussions to only the courtroom and judges. Caribou, Ms. Fondo.
>> MAUREEN FONDO: Thank you very much, Dr. Judge Eliamani Laltaika. Ladies and gentlemen, justices, colleagues, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, all protocol observed.
I thank the organizers for this opportunity availed to me to speak in this panel, to share knowledge, and I appreciate the previous part of the Panel 1 for sharing their insights.
Well, as legal professions, we have different roles that can really help in shaping the IP ecosystem and also the judiciary. So, when we look at the AI, the policies that are availed, that should be there. When we look at it, we know that in the international conventions and treaties, at the moment, we have the human‑centric aspect within those treaties and discussions are ongoing. So, this really affects whatever happens on the contracting parties, and also on the national systems that they have.
So, as a legal professions, what we need to do is to have those platforms to see how best we can then put our voice out to be able to influence the policies that will shape AI and also the legal frameworks within our countries.
So, we have our individual law societies; we have the regional law societies, whereby they avail platforms in terms of discussions of this important discourse, and also such kinds of forums like this one, whereby we can be able to get insights and information on what we have to do. So, there is need to undertake situational analysis to see what the other countries are doing and be able to benchmark with what we want to have.
And looking at other countries, such as the EU AI Act, we have the UK Guidelines, we have the New Zealand, the Singapore, the U.S. We try to contextualize depending on the region we are in, whether it is in Africa, Asia, or in any other region, and the country that we are in, to try to tailor make it. What are the gaps within the judiciary system? What are the gaps within the IP ecosystem? Because there are several stakeholders who are involved when it comes to the justice stakeholders. So, what are the pros and cons? What should they be able to benefit? And how is the judiciary supposed to act?
So, in terms of the consultation, there is need to engage each and every part of it so that we can have the policy framework being formulated. And the policy framework will really help us to know whether we need a legal framework of what kind of manner within that country, and the legal framework will now be able to determine in terms of creating and co‑creating value, whether the law reforms are supposed to be done in that spectrum so that to see how the AI can be used, to what limitations can the judicial officers use. How can they relate? How can they exercise the due process of the law and not to overstep or not to have undue influence in terms of their decisions and the reasoning that they may have. So, the principles of justice to be maintained.
And as lawyers, and also as scholars, whereby we are undertaking different researches, filling in gaps that are there and making recommendations, so we need to apply these recommendations and have platforms where we can speak and be able to publish and other people, the public to benefit. So, it should be a balanced approach, not only on one side, but to look at all the bigger picture of what the AI policy should entail. Who does it affect? All the court users are affected with this AI, if it's guidelines or regulations, and the like, and how best can it be made to benefit all stakeholders?
So, thank you very much for that opportunity.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Fondo, for that intervention. It's definitely upon us to consider all our different stakeholders and how they are affected by the decision we take to use or not to use AI in the judicial process.
To conclude this part, I am really honoured to welcome a very experienced judge. Her name is Madam Justice Sylvia Chirawu and is a justice since she was an advocate. She went into private practice for ten years. She later became the National Director of Women in Law in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe chapter. Later, she became an academic, where she rose through different ranks to become Deputy Dean for Law, University of Zimbabwe, and she was appointed Judge of the High Court on the 17th of December, 2017, and she now presides over the Civil Division, and she also spent some time at the family law court. A warm welcome, Madam Justice Sylvia. Five minutes.
>> Sylvia CHIRAWU: Thank you very much, Honorable Judge. And I just want to tell all participants that I only joined this yesterday afternoon, but I will do my best to speak on the issues being raised. And first and foremost, I would like to say that Zimbabwe adopted what we call interpretive electronic case management system in 2022, initially through the commission of the Division of the High Court, when also (?) and now the general division of the high court, and now it has cascaded to the magistrate court. So, Zimbabwe really is on course in terms of electronics.
Now, coming specifically to the issue of evidence. I'm sure Zimbabwe is not alone in the sense that most of the laws that deal with the visibility of evidence were developed way before the AI era. So, in Zimbabwe, we have the criminal procedure and evidence, actually also have the Civil Evidence Act, and more recently, with the Cyber and Data Protection Act, we also have the Criminal Law Court. But when we look at this more, what is the powers, that while they were developed, AI was not an issue. And of course, over the years, there have been some move to actually make some evidence admissible, for instance, electronic evidence and documents generated from computers. So, that evidence is also now admissible in terms of the law, but generally, what we are seeing is that the laws have not been amended to keep up with the (audio fading in and out) Data Protection Act, but it's really through the collection of data and the use.
So, now, when we are looking now at AI, of course, the challenges have been mentioned, those that have to do with the reliability and lack of transparency. So, now when it comes now to access to justice, we think that ‑‑
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you very much, Madam Justice. Would you conclude, please?
>> Sylvia CHIRAWU: Yes. So, we see that in terms of the way forward, perhaps it would be to actually have specific policy framework. Zimbabwe as a country is developing a policy framework on AI, so the judiciary could actually jump in and also develop its own policies that are specific to the judiciary. And also, we look at the laws with a view to amending them with respect to AI.
And then also, I think in terms of the human element, there also must be an acceptance that the human element in evidence before the Courts is always submitted where we ‑‑
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you. Thank you very much.
>> Sylvia CHIRAWU: Okay, thank you.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: We appreciate that. Thanks a lot. As you have heard, the Madam Justice is emphasizing on the importance of legislation, that any decision we take, and because parliamentarians are also here, we need you to legislate. Yes, I'm coming. Yes, I'm coming to that. A big clap to our online speakers.
I am told we have five minutes left. Isabella? Yes. Three minutes or so. So, I will violate some rules by allowing a few questions to come. And I will start with the Honorable Member of Parliament, within of you. You can share each other's question. And then I'll go to the gentleman there. We start here. Yes. Yes.
>> AUDIENCE: The leadership of this session, highly esteemed members of the judiciary, my dear colleagues, I'm Senator (?). I'm a senator representing the good people of Nigeria, the Senate. I came along with my colleagues, my chairman. I am senator, and Chairman of the House of Representatives are here.
I feel like making a small contribution. The topic is, can AI replace the human element in courts? The answer is, no, it cannot. The AI for me improves the human lawyer inefficiency. It improves. AI is scientific. It can be controlled. And therefore, if anybody controls the AI aspect in court, it will interpret that they think. They must, just as set by the High Court in Egypt, that there must be a need for high legislation so that there is no way the Supreme Court will give its judgment when there are no legislations. And I would have loved that when it comes to topics like this, as members of the judiciaries are discussing, if the legislators should be part of this discussion, a experienced relationship with the judges.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you very much.
>> AUDIENCE: I thank you for the opportunity.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: I will wish that there must be high legislation.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you very much.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: The Honorable MP's echoing what the representative of Zimbabwe is saying in terms of there must be legislation. Gentleman, please, very brief.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you for the insightful presentation. I am Christian (?) from the dear Congo. As a public prosecutor.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: You are a journalist?
>> AUDIENCE: I am a public prosecutor from the DR Congo.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Public prosecutor, okay.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes. As a public prosecutor in DRC, I confront two AI‑driven threats to our justice system, amidst ongoing violence, as you know. The AI‑fueled disinformation, exacerbating ethnic conflicts, and the AI‑generated evidence by armed groups. I would like to now, how can the international community enforce ethical AI supply chain that prevents Congolese conflicts minerals from founding violence and while counting AI disinformation is collecting the conflicts?
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Thank you very much.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you.
>> ELIAMANI LALTAIKA: Sorry that there is another session particularly related to how AI can be used for good, instead of for wars and all harms you have mentioned. We will invite you to that one. And I'm told that this room is being used for another session right now, and even the opportunity I wanted to give my colleagues for winding up is not there. And I want to thank each one of you for having many dedication to knowing what direction judiciaries around the world are taking on AI.
(Applause)
