Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan has written a letter to Chief Justice Sarfraz Dogar, expressing serious reservations over the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in judicial processes, warning against the concept of “robotic justice”, 24NewsHD TV channel reported on Monday.
Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan also shared a copy of his letter with all IHC judges. The letter references discussions held during a recent full court meeting chaired by Chief Justice Dogar regarding the potential role of computers or robots in court proceedings.
In the letter, Justice Ejaz wrote that the use of AI in the judiciary is an intense global debate, adding that computers or robots can neither possess moral reasoning nor exercise independent judgement.
He stressed that any decisions made by AI systems would always be subject to the programming and data fed into them, and therefore, “robots or computer judges will merely reflect their programmers’ biases and limitations.”
The judge noted that opponents of AI in courts argue that robotic systems are inherently programmable, meaning that any robotic judge would always remain under the control of its coding, not independent reasoning.
Justice Ejaz further stated that while he previously disagreed with critics of AI in judicial functions, his views changed after the full court meeting.
He said he now aligns with the dissenting opinions of Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz, both of whom have raised objections to using AI as a decision-maker in the judiciary.
It is worth mentioning that the full court meeting was held last month, and prior to it, on September 3, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan wrote a letter to CJ and called for adding more items to the agenda of the full court meeting.
The judge said in a letter that the Practice and Procedure rules were sent to the judges one and a half days before the meeting to elicit their opinion about them. “Judges should have been given a presentation on the adoption of these rules,” he said.
Justice Ejaz expressed his inability to give any meaningful opinion on these rules. He questioned why the Gazette of Practice and Procedure Rules was issued sans the approval of the full court, saying in this situation, all steps taken under the rules could be declared illegal.
He demanded that the issue of not including senior judges in the administrative committee should also be taken up at the meeting.
Similarly, he has said that the matter of making it binding on judges to obtain NOCs from the chief justice prior to going abroad should also be discussed by the judges.
“Because under no law should a judge obtain an NOC for travelling abroad,” he has said, adding, “Now the chief justice will decide whether judges will spend their vacations in Pakistan or abroad.”
Likewise, Justice Ejaz has pointed out that there are several orders regarding the composition of benches. “This matter should also be taken up for discussion at the meeting.”
Reporter: Ehtesham Kayani