The future of justice between new technologies and the search for balance

2.Justice and technology.

The issue of justice is particularly significant and ultimately results in the two extreme solutions of the judge-man and the judge-robot. The machine, deprived of discretion, should choose which mathematical rules to apply in resolving the case through probabilistic 'reasoning' based on precedent, rather than through traditional interpretive reasoning. There is a strong temptation at this point to prefer the judgement of the machine rather than that of the person, in order to have a neutral and quick justice product; but it comes at a high price. It is the need to renounce the 'reserves of humanity' of justice and judgement; to emotionality and empathy; to reasonable doubt; to a knowledge that goes beyond the 'perfect appearance' of an 'algorithmic type of knowledge'. Digital prudence and education of the judge, the prosecutor and the lawyer; protection of human rights; guarantee of the human dimension of justice are therefore essential. The lack of this perspective may lead to the conclusions of recent research in the United States on the 'forum shopping' of rights and judges based on an artificial intelligence model that predicts the outcome of the decision 'without looking at the law or the concrete fact' but at the biographical data and the 'decision-making history' of the judge to whom the decision is entrusted with a 'profiling' of him. The different orientation of the European Union is based on the extent and gradualness of the risk inherent in the use of the most up-to-date, perfected and recent technological tools. It is a use that must first and foremost guarantee the principles of security, transparency, traceability, non-discrimination and respect for the fundamental rights of the individual and the environment.

3.The future of advocacy in search of balance.

The ecological, technological and cultural transitions referred to are inevitable and finding a balance is not easy. It can be preserved through respect for guarantees; the relationship between trial and information; the cohesion that must exist between lawyers and judges to consolidate the authority of justice in multiple aspects, problems and novelties. The lawyers of today and tomorrow must not get involved in a 'war' against the judiciary and in a corporative dimension, instead of promoting a constructive dialogue in defence of the inviolable rights of the client and of all: in short, a sort of application of the equal social dignity of Article 3 of the Constitution in the relationship between magistrates and lawyers. The centrality of human rights in the context of cultural, technological and ecological transitions and the ever-increasing enhancement of the lawyer's role with reference to the problems and difficulties of exercising his profession are fundamental in a post-globalisation and crisis context whose effects heavily affect people (especially the weakest, including prisoners, as the Pope reminds us at the opening of the Jubilee).