Judiciary sets out five core principles in position statement on judicial use of AI

The statement, issued by Sir Colin Birss, President of the Business and Property Division and Lead Judge for Artificial Intelligence, also says AI should be adopted to "support but not replace" judicial decision-making and be subject to strict safeguards and robust testing.

The document is intended to guide senior judiciary working with the Judicial Office, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) and the Ministry of Justice on AI adoption.

It sets out the following five core principles:

1. The use of AI must remain consistent with the judiciary’s overarching obligation to protect the integrity of the administration of justice and to uphold the rule of law.
2. Judicial decisions will be taken by a judicial office holder. AI may assist, but it must not displace reasoning, evaluation of evidence or the exercise of judicial discretion.
3. Judicial independence, impartiality, fairness, accountability, confidentiality and security must be preserved at all times.
4. Human oversight is essential. Every AI output used in judicial work must be reviewed, verified and approved by the responsible judicial office holder. The judicial office holder remains fully accountable.
5. The judiciary is taking a cautious but positive approach to AI adoption, supported by pilots, evaluation, training, governance and transparency, to maintain public confidence and uphold open justice.

The position statement says: "The AI tools must not determine the outcome of a case or displace judicial reasoning, analysis or discretion."

It also says that only approved AI tools may be used for judicial purposes. These tools must feature UK data residency, enterprise data protection, and disabled web access.

The judiciary has run a series of pilots to date to consider AI implementation and use cases. These pilots have examined how AI can support functions such as summarisation, transcription, redaction, and writing in accessible language.

They have also explored administrative or leadership tasks, chronology-building, and document analysis.

Sir Colin adds: "These pilots have also tested the reliability of AI tools and their outputs, the degree of human checking required, the handling of sensitive material, and the safeguards necessary for operational use. Lessons learnt from these pilots have shaped this statement."

Elsewhere, the position statement says that any new use case, product or pilot, must be considered by a centralised steering group, chaired by the Lead AI Judge. The group will assess legal, ethical, operational, security and data protection issues before they can proceed, according to the statement.

It will also provide the sole route for oversight of the development, piloting and deployment of AI tools and a route for escalation should concerns arise.

Adam Carey