An Economic Perspective of the Justice Digitalisation Process: The Questions of Efficiency and Equity

Abstract

The general problems of the Judicial Administrations in Europe, and particularly in Spain, are profound and diverse, but perhaps the most relevant and evident are the time delay in legal resolutions and the influence of economic conditions of users both regarding simple access to the Judicial Administration and in the very sense or result of different legal proceedings. In fact, one of the most serious deficiencies of the Spanish public administration is the notable opacity or scarce transparency for citizens and, as a result of this, the high level of corruption and the unequally distributed benefits thereof. This situation is of course transferred to the Judicial Administration, judges, lawyers and procuradors via private proceedings. The digitalisation process of the Judicial Administration is bringing with it perceivable changes in the efficiency of the system, deriving from better access to information on legal proceedings on the part of citizens, deemed on the whole to be positive and, deriving from it, improvements in the functioning of the economic model. Nevertheless, on the side of iniquity as regards access to justice and legal resolutions, the “inequality of arms”, the available predictions and studies are inconclusive, putting forward, furthermore, serious concerns regarding the effect on legal guarantees and the right to honour and privacy of citizens. In this study, which is interdisciplinary in nature, I preferentially use the perspective and instruments of the Economic Analysis of Law to address and substantiate the aforementioned questions. The processes of digitalisation and artificial intelligence are topics of scientific, professional and popular relevance, particularly in the Judicial Administration. They are in reality complex matters and in my judgement are not being produced with the required rigour, at least in the public and private professional Judicial Administration sphere, not even in the terms and denominations employed, nor in the correlative concepts they seek to reflect. In this essay, after briefly analysing the starting premise and presenting the institutional framework in which these processes and correlative debates are taking place, I shall put forward a taxonomic proposal. I shall then analyse the effects it has on the efficiency and equity of the legal system and with a general reflection on the role of algorithms and artificial intelligence in modern society. I shall end with the diverse challenges that are being considered and the preventions that should be put in place prior to the application of the innovations in question.