Supreme Court (SC) chief justice Alexander Gesmundo has called for safeguards around the use of artificial intelligence in courts, saying digital reforms must protect rights, due process, security, and public trust.
Speaking at a judicial conference at Stanford Law School in California on Sept. 26, Gesmundo described the Philippine Judiciary’s digital transformation and its framework for using AI to assist, rather than replace, human decision-making.
“In our own innovation journey, we move fast on experimentation. But we move carefully on the core of what courts do: rights, due process, security, and public trust. Those are things a court cannot afford to break,” he said.
The SC’s Governance Framework on the Use of Human-Centered Augmented Intelligence in the Judiciary treats AI as a support tool for judges, court personnel, and court users, while keeping human judgment central to judicial functions.
Gesmundo linked the court’s technology efforts to the Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations 2022–2027, which aims to improve access to justice across the country.
“In the Philippines — an archipelago of over 7,000 islands — access to justice is physically and geographically complex. When we designed [the SPJI], we recognized that modernizing our courts must not be an exercise in adopting technology for technology’s sake,” he said.
Gesmundo also proposed exploring an Asean Judicial Innovation Hub in partnership with Stanford University. The proposed hub would include a network for sharing practices, an academy for training, and a research center focused on judicial development. No timetable for its creation was announced.
“The Philippine Supreme Court is open to active, mutual judicial partnership, such as sharing our digital transformation experience, serving as a real-world sandbox for adaptive technologies from other jurisdictions, and exchanging people-centered justice reforms,” he said.
