The adoption of EU Council conclusions on the digitalisation of judicial systems, scheduled for the meeting of EU justice ministers on 9 October, may prove a little more difficult than expected. After an informal written procedure and several bilateral contacts, one country is said to oppose the text: Poland.
According to our information, it is not the section on digitalisation itself that would be problematic, but the term “gender equality” used in a paragraph that warns against the risk that the use of artificial intelligence in the justice sector could reinforce existing discrimination and infringe fundamental rights.
Poland wants to replace this term with “equality between women and men”, arguing that this term is used in Article 23 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
However, other Member States would like to keep the term “gender equality”, pointing out that it is commonly used in recent EU documents, such as the EU Council conclusions on “Shaping Europe's Digital Future”, which was adopted in June.
The issue is to be discussed at the meeting of Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) on Wednesday 30 September in order to overcome the blockage. In the event of persistent disagreement, the EU Council conclusions could be transformed into mere Presidency of the EU Council conclusions.
The rest of the text, on the other hand, is the subject of consensus. The version to be examined by Coreper, dated 25 September and of which EUROPE has received a copy, contains few additions compared with the first draft text, drawn up in August (see EUROPE 12547/16).
The text continues to call on the Commission to develop a comprehensive EU strategy for the digitalisation of Justice as well as to develop a monitoring of the relevant digitalisation indicators in the Justice Scoreboard (see EUROPE 12525/21). It further requests that it evaluate possible actions and present concrete ideas in a communication, as it has committed itself to do, by the end of 2020 (see EUROPE B1254015).
With regard to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of Justice, the draft text seems to harden its tone a little more. While it still recognises the potential of AI, it underlines that the use of artificial intelligence tools must not interfere with the decision-making power of judges or judicial independence. “A court decision must always be made by a human being and cannot be delegated to an artificial intelligence tool”, the text points out.
The text also asks the Commission to take into account the specific risks and requirements of the justice sector when designing a future EU legal framework for artificial intelligence (see EUROPE 12538/13). (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)