This Article has been written by Dhwisha Bhatt, a first year student at Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad
INTRODUCTION
Technology is something that has completely changed the way we look at the world from smart boards in schools to robots performing surgeries in hospitals technology has taken over the world. The development of technology has its own set of advantages but with time we realise that it also has the potential of taking away jobs. Soon, we can imagine drones delivering food at our doorstep, robots working in factories or maybe flying planes as well. As Albert Einstein rightly said,” I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation [1]of idiots.” With the increase in the usage of technology, our human interaction has decreased widely and many people are losing their jobs today. With this increased dependency on technology, many professions are a risk of being replaced and a fear of losing jobs consistently persists.
LAW AND TECHNOLOGY
As Bill Gates said, "The intersection of law, politics and technology is going to force a lot of good thinking." [2]With the amalgamation of law and technology things are done more smoothly and quickly and technology has helped the legal field in many ways like Attorneys can use their Microsoft One Drive cloud to review case laws and sift through filings, or they can use other cloud servers to exchange documents with their colleagues in seconds and technology also helps them to save large documents in an organized manner and this has made the work of the people of the legal sector easy. Today law has become dependable on technology where case details can be found within seconds on the internet and lawyers can be accessed from any part of the world at any time. This relationship between law and technology is undeniable but that comes with a profound fear of being replaced by technology. Using technology in law has become a vital part of the legal sector and functioning without it would be very difficult but replacing judges with technology doesn't seem to benefit society. Many sectors like factory workers, doctors, analysts are now being replaced with technology and now the legal field seems to be the next target. ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES OF REPLACING JUDGES WITH TECHNOLOGY
The former Chief Justice of India SA Bobde in one of his speeches emphasised the need for artificial intelligence in the judicial system, especially in cases of repetitive nature and document management He did however warn, that technology or artificial intelligence cannot substitute human discretion, which is needed for making fair decisions Technology is being used in all parts of the world to make the work of humans easier but the question remains can this be introduced in the courts of India and can technology replace the judges.[3]
In India, there are currently 4928 vacancies for judges in the lower courts and almost 458 vacancies in the high court with thousands of people still waiting behind the bars to be delivered justice.[4] With this judicial system in the country, introducing technology in the courts of India can help in the speedy disposal of cases which can help improve the country's Judiciary. A group of American academics have created a machine learning application that claims to be 70.2 per cent accurate in predicting the outcome of a United States Supreme Court case and 71.9 per cent accurate in predicting the voting actions of individual judges.[5] Even in the European Court of Human rights the AI ( Artificial intelligence ) can process the natural language and is also able to predict the outcome of the case with a 79% accuracy.[6] With the above examples, it can be stated that AI or technology can help the Indian courts with faster disposal of cases, managing and organizing work and making the work of the legal field easier.
Adopting technology simply for the sake of using it is a bad idea. With so many benefits of implementing technology in the Indian courts, many drawbacks follow with it. While deciding a criminal case in madras, Justice P Devadass stated that a machine, no matter how advanced cannot substitute a judge who is supposed to apply a human touch while dealing with cases[7]. Technology can be trained to organize files and documents, predict cases and maybe also decide whether there has been a violation of law or not but it cannot apply the feelings, aspirations and the human touch judges give to every case. Technology cannot substitute prosecutors' and defendants' attorneys' depth of judicial knowledge, experience, and expertise in law enforcement. A judge's job is difficult. It may include advocacy, nuanced relationships with individuals, conflict resolution, case management, public and specific education programmes, social criticism, and adjudicatory functions. Complete assessment and decision of whether to detain or release an alleged defendant on bail for every specific defendant accused of any specific crime necessitate the application of both of these combined skills. But what technology cannot replace is their knowledge and their discretion. Technology is something that is man-made and hence it's subject to errors, the point is can we afford this error where someone's life is at stake be it conducting surgeries or replacing judges. The knowledge, expertise, and hard work of the judges cannot be replaced with technology. With already about a 33million people being jobless in the year 2019-2020 in India this system of replacing several professions will render more people jobless.[8] Technology will function in a very mechanical way which will help in the speedy disposal of cases but will justice be provided to each of them.
CONCLUSION
Law and technology go hand in hand these days but when one starts overshadowing the other it becomes a problem. Judges in India have profound and in-depth knowledge about the law and their human touch to the case is what helps in delivering justice to the people. Technology no matter how efficient it proves to be cannot replace the knowledge, feelings and discretion that a human has. Technology is a man-made concept due to which it is susceptible to errors and errors in the field of law can cost one's life. Therefore, judges should not be replaced with technology. Moreover, so many people are rendered jobless and this step will encourage more people jobless hence technology should not replace judges or lawyers. But to encourage faster and speedy disposal of cases, technology can be introduced to help the lawyers and judges do the tasks that take too much time and help the judge with paperwork, organizing documents and assist him which will lower the burden from the judge and aid in disposing of cases smoothly and quickly. Discretion is the most powerful thing that a judge holds and that no technology can replace. So, what the Indian courts should imbibe is introducing technology that aids the judge in any way and reduces his burden so that there is speedy disposal of cases with the required justice. As Elbert Hubbard rightly said, “One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.”[9]
[1] Harry mount, Was Einstein Right? A physicist once said he feared that technology would surpass human. interaction - and these photos show that time may not be far off, Daily Mail, (Jan 28th, 2015, 1:48 BST) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2929268/Was-Einstein-right-Physicist-said-feared-technology-surpass-human-interaction-photos-time-not-far-off.html [2], Chuck Swoboda, What Jeff Bezos And Bill Gates Learned About Failure That Made Them Successful, Forbes, (Aug 24, 2020, 8:10 am EDT) https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckswoboda/2020/08/24/what-jeff-bezos-and-bill-gates-learned-about-failure-that-made-them-successful/?sh=17e682f55af2 [3] Nalini Sharma, Futuristic judiciary not an impossible dream: CJI Bobde on AI use in the judiciary, India Today, (Apr 17, 2021, 12:50 am). https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/futuristic-judiciary-not-an-impossible-dream-cji-bobde-on-ai-use-in-judiciary-1791880-2021-04-17. [4] 419 posts out of 1080 sanctioned posts for judges in high courts, Supreme Court vacant, Business today, (March 17, 2021, 7:49 pm) https://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/419-posts-out-of-1080-sanctioned-posts-for-judges-in-high-courts-supreme-court-vacant/story/434104.htm.l [5] Medvedeva, M., Vols, M. & Wieling, M. Using machine learning to predict decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. Artif Intell Law 28, 237–266 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-019-09255-y. [6] Reiling, A.D. (Dory)., 2020. Courts and Artificial Intelligence. International Journal for Court Administration, 11(2), p.8. DOI: http://doi.org/10.36745/ijca.343. [7] Computers cannot replace a judge: HC, The Hindu, (Jul 16, 2016, 5:42 am) https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/Computers-cannot-replace-a-judge-HC/article14491755.ece. [8] ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work Updated estimates and analysis, Seventh edition, ILO, Pg no 2, (Jan 25th.2021). [9] Steve Safarowic, 13 Skills to learn for becoming an essential employee, (Apr 22, 2020). https://xccelerate.medium.com/13-skills-to-learn-for-becoming-an-essential-employee-5f9117643262. Quentin L Kopp, Replacing Judges with Computers Is Risky, Harvard Law Review, (Feb 20, 2020) https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/replacing-judges-with-computers-is-risky. Play our courtroom algorithm game, Karen Hao and Jonathan Ray, 17th October, 2017. Karen Hao & Jonathan Ray, Can you make AI fairer than a judge?, MIT Technology Review,( October 17th, 2017). https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/22/1016577/ai-fairer-healthcare-patient-outcomes/ Use of Artificial Intelligence Should Align with Our Constitutional Morality: Chief Justice SA Bobde, Lydia Suzzane Thomas, Live law, (Apr 21, 2021, 1:03 am) https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/artificial-intelligence-constitutional-morality-chief-justice-bobde-vidhi-report-172879
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