Artificial Intelligence in court proceedings: current trends and legal challenges

Abstract

The integration of artificial intelligence into court proceedings represents a pivotal transformation in the organization of judicial systems, promising significant gains in procedural efficiency while simultaneously generating fundamental legal and institutional challenges. This article examines the current state and prospects of AI implementation in Ukrainian court document management, analysing both the opportunities offered by intelligent automation and the legal tensions arising from the coexistence of paper and electronic document circulation under the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System (UJITS). Drawing on the experience of Palm Beach County, Florida – where AI-powered robotic process automation classifies and files nearly a third of all electronic submissions — the article demonstrates that technologies such as optical character recognition, automated document classification, and intelligent case management systems are capable of substantially reducing the workload of court staff, accelerating procedural timelines, and enhancing access to justice. At the same time, the article documents the practical dysfunctions of Ukraine’s transitional model, in which the simultaneous maintenance of parallel paper and electronic workflows has increased, rather than reduced, the burden on court personnel and created structural obstacles to the realization of the constitutional right of unhindered access to justice under Article 55 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The article further analyses the normative framework governing AI in the Ukrainian judicial system, including the Concept for the Development of Artificial Intelligence in Ukraine (2020) and the CEPEJ European Ethical Charter on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Judicial Systems (2018), and identifies five priority domains for AI implementation: document workflow automation, judicial decision support, enhancement of access to justice, systemic transparency and anti-corruption monitoring, and process robotization. The study argues that the introduction of AI into Ukrainian court proceedings must be guided by the principles of non-discrimination, transparency, human oversight, and data security, and that full automation of judicial decision-making remains both technically premature and institutionally undesirable at the present stage. The article concludes that AI should be integrated as an organic complement to the existing judicial model rather than as a substitute for human judgment, with continuous monitoring and optimization as mandatory conditions of responsible deployment.