Southeast Asian courts are scrambling to catch up with the rapid rise of cybercrime and artificial intelligence (AI), with Supreme Court (SC) associate justice Jose Midas P. Marquez warning that justice systems risk being outpaced by technology if they do not adapt.
Marquez, who led the Asean Regional Workshop on Judicial Training Strategies on Cybercrime and Electronic Evidence in Tagaytay City last Sept. 17–19, said the region faces mounting threats from borderless cybercrime operations while justice systems remain hampered by low digital literacy, outdated training, and weak coordination with law enforcement.
“Cybercrime is borderless, and our responses must be just as agile and coordinated. Without stronger judicial capacity, we risk falling behind criminals who are always one step ahead,” Marquez told delegates from eight Asean countries.
The workshop exposed glaring gaps: judges struggling to interpret digital evidence, prosecutors grappling with evolving online threats, and law enforcers lacking the training to pursue cases effectively. Delegates examined the Council of Europe’s CyBox training platform as a stopgap measure, but acknowledged that local systems remain uneven and underprepared.
A week later, at the Sejong International Judicial Conference in Seoul, Marquez shifted focus to another technological fault line: artificial intelligence in courts.
While citing the Supreme Court’s pilot of Scriptix, an AI-powered transcription tool that slashes processing time from two weeks to a few days, he warned that courts cannot outsource judgment to machines.
“AI may support justice, but it must never substitute human judgment,” Marquez cautioned, listing dangers including biased data, algorithmic errors, confidentiality breaches, and the absence of empathy and ethical discretion.
Experts fear that without safeguards, AI could amplify systemic flaws and compromise rights. Marquez said the Philippine judiciary is drafting ethical and operational guidelines to prevent abuse, but acknowledged the risks are real and growing.
Both the Tagaytay and Seoul meetings underscored a stark reality: while criminals and technologies evolve at breakneck speed, courts across Asia remain trapped in slow, fragmented systems.
Unless urgent reforms are made, Marquez warned, the justice system could find itself overwhelmed by the very technologies it is trying to regulate.
