UNESCO panel maps an inclusive path for AI in justice
When a court goes digital, who is it built for? That question sat at the centre of a panel on justice and inclusion at the 4th UNESCO Global Forum on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (GFEAI) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where panellists examined how AI could close, or deepen, the gap between people who can access justice and those who cannot.
Alpha Sesay, Attorney General and Minister of Justice of Sierra Leone, noted that in Sierra Leone a significant share of the population meets its justice needs outside the formal court system less than 30% of the country has mobile internet access. For him, digitalisation must start by asking who could be excluded, such as a domestic violence victim in a rural community or a farmer who cannot afford traveling to court.
His concern was echoed by Judge Abdulaziz bin Mohammed Al-Samaani of the Board of Grievances in Saudi Arabia, who argued that an AI strategy for the judiciary should be judged not by how much technology it introduces, but by whether it improves access to knowledge and services without compromising the fundamental safeguards of justice.
Smita Mutt, Strategic Initiatives Lead at DAKSH, a civil society and research organization in India, cautioned that the risk of exclusion grows when adoption moves faster than governance. A UNESCO survey found that 44% of judicial operators globally were already using some form of AI, while only 9% had received formal training.
This means that AI tools are already shaping outcomes for litigants with little oversight of their use and impact. Ms Mutt pointed to case scheduling that can make a difference. For example, case lists released late in the evening can disproportionately affect female advocates, who have caregiving responsibilities, while last-minute rescheduling can leave already at-risk litigants exposed. She argued that assessments of AI in the courts need to capture these second-order effects on vulnerable groups.
Stella Murungi, Chief Digital Officer at Rwanda's Ministry of Justice, shared the example of a model that closes rather than widens this gap. In Rwanda, a network of community-based agents, operating through local shops under the IremboGov e-government platform, extends digital government services into rural areas, with pricing harmonised among agents. She also mentioned Rwanda's constitutional quota for a minimum of 30% women representation in decision-making positions exceeded to around 50% among judges in the judiciary.
Judge Abdulaziz noted that inclusion also depends on getting the technology right, and that AI outputs must be verified rather than trusted outright. This is a particularly salient point with the growing use of AI in courts. In one of the earlier cases of known AI use in courts, a judge in Colombia acknowledged his reliance on a generative AI tool’s reasoning to decide a child’s insurance benefits, raising concern over the risk of exclusion if the AI tool’s output had concluded otherwise.
Stella Murungi added that Rwanda checks the accuracy of AI-generated language before deployment, particularly for non-English speakers to ensure the accuracy of translations. Rwanda also classifies cases by risk, automating low-risk administrative tasks, while always keeping a human as the final decision-maker for high-risk uses such as sentencing.
Speakers agreed that closing the justice gap will take more than any single AI tool. It requires a mix of digital services, community participation and the appropriate governance in place before deployment. UNESCO shared with participants its Ethical Impact Assessment methodology and AI Readiness Assessment Methodology as practical starting points, along with its free MOOC on AI, Justice and the Rule of Law, developed with the University of Oxford.
As more judiciaries turn to AI, the panel's main message was that the measure of success is not how much technology a court adopts, but whether the people most likely to be left behind are still able to get the justice they came for.
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