Can artificial intelligence replace human judges?

The essay highlights the positions of Russian legal scholars, specialists in procedural law, according to whom modern technologies should change the very essence of legal proceedings. The process, in particular, will consist in the fact that sooner or later a human judge will be replaced by artificial intelligence,

and digital legal proceedings will take place according to new principles. For their part, the author of the essay puts forward arguments justifying the value of the classical principles of legal proceedings, primarily listed in Art. 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, since only their action creates a regime in which justice is administered, the highest quality of protection of subjective rights, freedoms and legitimate interests is ensured. Special focus is put on the thesis research of Danil Olegovich Drozd on the topic “The Procedural Forms of the Use of Artificial Intelligence Elements in the Modern Commercial and Civil Litigation” (Moscow, 2024), the author of which proposed options for adapting the known principles of the judicial process to artificial intelligence. In response, arguments are given in favour of the fact that it will not be possible to adapt the key principles of justice to artificial intelligence at present or in the near future. At the same time, the principle of judicial independence is emphasized, as well as the principle of the administration of justice exclusively by the court. Consequently, it is obviously too early to talk about the possibility of replacing a human judge in administering justice with such intelligence. The author believes that modern technologies can certainly facilitate the administration of justice, including by facilitating access to it for various people. At the same time, the rule, according to which such technologies should fully ensure the operation of generally known principles of justice, should be applied as a key principle of using modern technologies in legal proceedings.

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