by Curlan Campbell
- ECSC Chief Justice addressed new law year under theme “Innovation and Justice Reform”
- Dame Janice stressed need for judges to skillfully manage AI-generated information while taking advantage of its benefits
- First installation of ELP criminal module scheduled to go live in first quarter of 2024
The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) no longer has the luxury of ignoring the inevitable integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into the courtroom, was the view expressed by ECSC Chief Justice Dame Janice Mesadis Pereira DBE, during her address to usher in the new law year as part of the traditional ceremonial opening in Grenada under the theme “Innovation and Justice Reform.”
The special sitting was streamed live across member states and territories of the Eastern Caribbean. In her 10th and final year as ECSC Chief Justice, Dame Janice urged member territories to evaluate the potential possibility AI integration can have in increasing access to justice for indigent litigants, revolutionising legal research, and promoting effective case management while simultaneously evaluating the potential threats it can pose to the legal profession.
“There is no doubt that AI has opened an entirely new vista with the promise of a vast range of new benefits, but it will also bring about new challenges for courts and the legal profession. For example, the courts will have to grapple with questions of what is real or authentic or from authentic sources in areas of evidence, as well as the law itself. It has also evoked a considerable degree of fear, and discussions abound about the potential to render humans extinct,” Dame Janice said.
While the likelihood of AI being unable to replicate human discretion in executing judgment remains a cause for concern, Dame Janice stressed the need for judges to skillfully manage AI-generated information while taking advantage of its benefits: “We must evaluate and take advantage of the forms of AI that will assist us in overcoming the various challenges we face in making the court processes more streamlined and efficient. New technologies like AI allow us to automate highly repetitive and routine tasks.” She said, “Some useful implementations of this innovation include automated code schedules, virtual customer service agents, automated documents, sorting and review and computerised report generation from applications like ELP to provide real-time statistics for more effective management and evaluation of our key performance indicators. At the same time, judges must become aware of how to manage and evaluate AI-generated material.”
The Chief Justice highlighted progress made by the ECSC to ensure swift dispensation of justice throughout the court’s jurisdiction. As part of this mandate, the ECSC, under her leadership, implemented several projects to transform the court’s filing and case management system through the E-Litigation Portal (ELP), which is an integrated e-filing and case management web-based application that provides court users and all stakeholders with access to assigned services anytime, anywhere and on any device, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops.
Dame Janice described the implementation of ELP as a pivotal step in the court’s history since it has reduced delays and case backlogs previously caused by the court’s reliance on a paper-based system. “I am informed that here in Grenada, the case backlog for civil matters has been significantly reduced. This is a feat that ought to be emulated by the other member states and territories. But what I ask is that for a more in-depth look at the court’s performance.”
The ECSC Chief Justice outlined several major highlights during her tenure, including successfully implementing the ELP for the electronic filing and management of all appealed matters, civil matters in the high courts, and most of the magistracy.
The ELP was first implemented in the family division in Antigua and Barbuda in October 2022, but by July 2023, the ECSC completed the ELP links for family and civil matters in the magistracy across all member states and territories. She indicated that the greatest advantages of adopting a digitised case management system were most keenly felt during the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dame Janice further outlined steps that will be undertaken in 2024 to further improve the court’s system. “We have also made great progress toward realising the launch of the criminal module in both the high courts and the magistracy across the member states and territories. The implementation of the criminal module will take us to a full digitisation of case management services in all cases and at all levels of all caught in novel feature of our electronic case management system, which is being pursued is the adoption of a cross-sectional approach by automating information sharing between the various stakeholders in the management of criminal cases,” she explained. “Prospective users of the criminal module will include staff from the offices of the directors of Public Prosecutions and attorneys general. Later, it is hoped that this will be expanded to the police and correctional facilities. It is expected that the sharing of information across agencies and the introduction of an automated data exchange system will reduce the inaccuracies and delays often caused by paper-based methods in criminal case management, facilitate ease of cross-institutional processes and allow for the reallocation of human resources to other important tasks for greater efficiency.”
The criminal module of the ELP is near completion, with the first installation scheduled to go live during the first quarter of 2024. The full implementation is expected to occur across all member states and territories by the third quarter of this year.
