Artificial Intelligence and Justice: The Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence in the High Court Proceedings and Decision-Making (Albania and European Union Context)

1. The “Ex-Post” Context of Judicial Reform in Albania

Following the 2016 justice reform, Albania’s judiciary continues to face systematic challenges. The extensive vetting process for judges and prosecutors has led to staff shortages, contributing to substantial case delays, with approximately 16,052 cases pending before the High Court alone.¹ This backlog adversely affects the quality and timeliness of judicial deliberations. In this context, the implementation of AI could become a helpful tool for judges in terms of legal consistency, effectiveness, and efficiency.²

Initially, it is imperative to distinguish between two categories of artificial intelligence utilization within the judicial system. The first, AI for judicial administration, contains tools that enhance court operations, including case management, scheduling, document classification, and the reduction of backlogs. The second category, AI in judicial decision-making, involves systems that directly influence legal reasoning. These tools propose legal conclusions, predict case outcomes, generate sentencing recommendations, or otherwise shape the normative content of judgments. This distinction is significant, as each category presents different risk profiles and regulatory requirements. Administrative uses primarily raise concerns about fairness in access and procedural transparency, while decision-making applications engage fundamental rule-of-law values, such as judicial independence, reasoned justification, and the right to a fair trial. By making this distinction, this article can facilitate a more precise understanding of the subject matter. Discussion about necessary safeguards, such as implementing human-in-the-loop standards for administrative matters and maintaining strict human oversight for systems that significantly affect judicial outcomes. The High Court has recently made available on its official website the “JUDIX” section.³ This section enables lawyers, legal practitioners, and the broader public to conduct in-depth research into the practice of the High Court. This development could positively impact research on specific and relevant case law, thereby enhancing access to lawyers and legal professionals. In addition, the High Court of Albania has also introduced the “Newsletter”, through which every lawyer and legal professional can access the Court’s practice. However, in terms of effectiveness, this approach takes time to read every decision related to a given subject. Meanwhile, the incorporation of an AI tool could enhance the research for judges and for all other subjects interested in the practice of the High Court. The deployment of AI could enhance doctrinal consistency and jurisprudential coherence.⁴

To understand these claims clearly, it is necessary to explain how AI could improve not only automation and access but also the interpretative and qualitative dimensions of judicial work. Claims that AI can improve legal interpretation, decision quality, consistency, and transparency should be treated as conditional and technical. These outcomes can be achieved by enhancing legal research focused on the High Court’s role in unifying law practice through the JUDIX section. This platform aids law professionals in predicting case outcomes and suggests that incorporating High Court practices into legal reasoning from lower courts could enhance justice quality at all levels. In addition, from a legal reasoning and comparative analysis perspective, natural language processing techniques can deconstruct argumentative frameworks from previous rulings and deliver comparative analyses illustrating the application of legal principles by courts in varying contexts. Moreover, the integration of AI technologies has the potential to enhance the legal consistency of the High Court by facilitating the creation of comprehensive datasets of various legal principles and interpretations of specific articles as reflected in unified rulings. This would enable a more rigorous analysis of case law and assist in identifying patterns and inconsistencies across decisions.

2. A Comparative Analysis: The Court of Justice of the European Union and Lessons for Albania

The Court of Justice of European Union (CJEU) outlines in its 2023-2024 AI Strategy that AI technologies have the potential to modernize court administration and enhance the accessibility of legal information. Properly implemented, such tools promote greater coherencein judicial reasoning and facilitate more transparent access to justice.⁵ For the High Court of Albania, the legal consistency is at the core of its constitutional and legal function.⁶ Based on this article, it derives the potential role that AI could have in fulfilling this duty as required by law. The deployment of AI is in full compliance with the strategy of the CJEU. In the context of Albania, this initiative is highly recommended, having regard to the leading role that the High Court could have in the alignment of judicial practice with that of the CJEU. The strategy encourages the use of AI tools in the judiciary through correlation and classification of relevant cases and the employment of advanced research tools.     

AI can contribute not only to administrative efficiency but also to the interpretative quality of judicial reasoning. Through natural language processing, courts can extract and compare patterns of argumentation from prior rulings, improving consistency in their rulings. Claims that AI can improve legal interpretation, decision quality, consistency, and transparency should be treated as conditional and technical. These outcomes can be achieved by enhancing legal research focused on the High Court’s role in unifying law practice through the JUDIX section. This platform aids law professionals in predicting case outcomes and suggests that incorporating High Court practices into legal reasoning from lower courts could enhance justice quality at all levels. In addition, from a legal reasoning and comparative analysis perspective, natural language processing techniques can deconstruct argumentative frameworks from previous rulings and deliver comparative analyses illustrating the application of legal principles by courts in varying contexts. Moreover, the integration of AI technologies has the potential to enhance the legal consistency of the High Court by facilitating the creation of comprehensive datasets of various legal principles and interpretations of specific articles as reflected in unified rulings. This would enable a more rigorous analysis of case law and assist in identifying patterns and inconsistencies across decisions.

A further concern highlighted by the CJEU involves the potential for AI-generated inaccuracies or misleading outputs. Consequently, every implementation stage must include strict human supervision. The strategy outlines essential measures such as internal capacity-building, creation of testing environments, and compliance with EU cybersecurity standards.  In technical terms, the efficiency of the court is related to the incorporation of AI tools such as “speech-to-text machine”, which can make the hearings be produced automatically, so time is used effectively. Additionally, the use of “search engines” like “JUDIX,” which was recently promoted by the High Court of Albania, is a very promising initiative that could lead to the incorporation of AI in a near future. The incorporation of AI tools could help lawyers make predictive analysis of a given case law. This could be translated into a more professional and time-effective legal consultancy.

As mentioned above, this strategic document also emphasizes the risks associated with the incorporation of AI. Among these risks, the CJEU strategy lists bias or discrimination, ethical concerns, disclosure of sensitive data, vulnerability to cyberattacks, algorithmic explainability, and transparency. 

For each of them, the strategy outlines a potential mitigation strategy. First, to avoid any unintentional discrimination, the establishment of a laboratory for testing and training of AI models is highly demanded. Second, the question to be addressed in the use of AI is the impact of AI decisions on people’s lives. For this reason, the strategy is a human-based approach, making human oversight the core value of all implementation cycle. Third, the strategy recommends that the platform should be well protected from potential cyberattacks, and to ensure this security, the document suggests the division into two parts: first, “run solution” (as an authentic, original, and secret version) and “learning solution” that, in any case of cyberattack, the “run solution” remains unaffected. Fourth, explainability and transparency of AI algorithms strengthen the overall judicial transparency in the decision-making process, avoiding the phenomenon of “black box”.

3. Current Regulatory Framework

The work for designing a regulatory framework in the European Union (EU) started in 2018 by the European Commission with the “European Ethical Charter on the use of AI in Judicial Systems and their Environment, for the Efficiency of Justice (the “CEPEJ”).⁷ Within the European Union, two cornerstone documents regulate the responsible application of AI, the European AI Guidelines for Trustworthy AI⁸ and the EU AI Act,⁹ both were produced by the High-Level Expert Group on AI (“AI HLEG”). Together, they emphasize both a risk-oriented framework for compliance and a human-centered philosophy grounded in accountability and transparency. 

There were also some efforts from the Albanian Government to discipline the use of AI,¹⁰ though it was formally welcomed, it still needs the appropriate infrastructure for an effective implementation. Furthermore, the High Judicial Council of Albania has emphasized the importance of standardization and digitalization of certain templates that could assist courts in workload management.¹¹ Regarding the High Judicial Council decision no. 251, the report finds that the strategy goals for the reduction of backlog were not achieved. However, though these initiatives are praised in the Rule of Law Report published by the European Commission, it states that it will become operational only by 2030, which, in terms of duration, still requires a long time, automatically affecting the quality of justice. Moreover, the report recognizes the increase in backlog and recommends undertaking decisive measures to improve efficiency.¹²

In the context of Albanian jurisprudence, there is a pressing necessity for adherence to the standards set forth by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, and various reports related to the rule of law. These documents emphasize that the incorporation of AI into judicial processes presents notable challenges to the procedural safeguards essential for ensuring a fair trial, particularly within Albania’s legal context.

One significant concern is the principle of equality of arms, which may be compromised if one party in a legal proceeding acquires an unjust advantage through the use of non-transparent algorithmic evaluations of evidence or sentencing. The application of automated decision-support tools, when lacking clarity and transparency, risks infringing upon the rights of defendants to comprehend and dispute the rationale behind judicial decisions. This situation resonates with broader European human rights issues articulated in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which underscores the importance of human oversight and the discretion required in interpretation.

Furthermore, the growing dependence on digital tools and predictive analytics raises considerable privacy concerns. AI systems in the justice sector inevitably process sensitive information, ranging from personal identifiers to behavioral data. This raises legitimate privacy and confidentiality concerns, making compliance with data protection principles such as data minimization and purpose limitation essential. 

The deployment of AI in judicial decision-making also touches upon the very core of judicial independence and institutional integrity. In places where the rule of law is still being established, using technology can strengthen existing biases. This often happens under the pretense of being more efficient and modern. If algorithms are designed or trained using data reflecting systemic inequalities or political interference, judicial reasoning may become subtly conditioned by extra-legal factors. The substitution of judicial discretion with algorithmic pattern recognition can thus undermine the autonomy of judges, shifting authority from human judgment to technological infrastructure. To preserve independence, AI should serve as an assistive, not determinative, enhancing consistency while maintaining the interpretive and moral responsibility of human judges. Embedding transparency requirements, algorithmic accountability, and ethical oversight mechanisms within judicial governance frameworks can ensure that technological tools reinforce, rather than undermine, the independence and impartiality that form the cornerstone of democratic justice.

Conclusion

The incorporation of AI in the High Court proceedings and decision-making represents not a matter of choice, but rather an imperative of the era, in which efficiency, transparency, and consistency have become indispensable.  For the Albanian context, as a member-to-be of the European Union, the High Court stands at the forefront of this process. Use of AI tools can reduce backlogs, enhance legal consistency, and improve access to justice. However, these opportunities come along with risks like transparency, accountability, and questions about fundamental human rights such as fair trial, privacy, and data protection. 

Current EU regulatory frameworks emphasize a human-centered approach, making clear that the rule of law cannot be merely an automated process. Judicial reasoning and human oversight grounded in well-established principles of justice and human dignity should remain the core values of justice and democratic legitimacy. In this context, the challenge to be addressed is how the implementation of AI can serve justice without ever replacing judgment. In this perspective, the High Judicial Council of Albania, in collaboration with the High Court, is required to produce a strategy for the implementation of AI based on the standards set by the Court of Justice of the European Union. As Albania advances toward European Union membership, the High Court should embrace a human-centered integration of AI, anchored in the safeguards of Articles 6 and 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the EU AI Act, and its constitutional framework, heading to a more efficient and data-protection-oriented judiciary. This approach could strengthen the public’s confidence in the judiciary system as well as facilitate the process of EU membership.

Ultimately, the issue is not whether algorithms can decide cases, but whether such tools can help to decide justly, fairly, faster, and impact people’s lives for the better. To some extent, the very first answer is to determine AI as an ally to the courts, and not their substitute.

1. High Court of Albania, Summary of Reviews by the Respective Chambers, 1 April – 30 June 2025 (2025)  https://www.gjykataelarte.gov.al/sq/lajme/statistika/permbledhja-e-shqyrtimeve-sipas-kolegjeve-perkatese-1-prill-30-qershor-2025, accessed on 24 September 2025.
2. European Commission, 2025 Rule of Law Report – Country Chapter on Albania SWD(2025) https://commission.europa.eu/publications/2025-rule-law-report-communication-and-country-chapters_en, accessed on 23 September 2025.
3. Documentation Center, High Court of the Republic of Albania, https://judix.gjykataelarte.gov.al/ (accessed on 23 September 2025).
4. Radončić, Alida. “Behind AI as a Tool for Judicial Reasoning: A Western Balkans Perspective.” Law and Governance South Eeast Europe (LGSEE), 16 September 2025. Available at: https://lgsee.blog/behind-ai-as-a-tool-for-judicial-reasoning-a-western-balkans-perspective/
5. Court of Justice of the European Union, Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2023-24) https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2023-11/cjeu_ai_strategy.pdf (accessed 24 September 2025).
6. Article 141 of the Constitution of Albania states, “1. The High Court shall decide cases relating to the meaning and application of the law to ensure unification or evolution in judicial practice, in accordance with the law. 2. For the change of judicial practice, the High Court shall draw for review by the Joint Chambers, specific judicial issues decided by the chambers, in accordance with the law.”
7. European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ), European Ethical Charter on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Judicial Systems and Their Environment (31st plenary meeting, Strasbourg, 3–4 December 2018) available at https://www.unodc.org/res/ji/import/regional_standards/ethical_charter/ethical_charter.pdf  
8. High-Level Expert Group on AI, Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI (European Commission, 8 April 2019) https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai (accessed on 25 September 2025).
9. High-Level Expert Group on AI, EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/ (accessed on 25 September 2025).
10. Council of Ministers, Decision No. 479, dated on 24.7.2024, “On the Methodology and Technical Standards for the use of Artificial Intelligence”
11. High Judicial Council, Decision No. 251, dated 09.05.2024, “On the Strategy for the Reduction of Backlog in the Judicial System”
12. European Commission, 2025 Rule of Law Report – Country Chapter on Albania SWD(2025) https://commission.europa.eu/publications/2025-rule-law-report-communication-and-country-chapters_en, accessed on 23 September 2025.