Supreme Court senior associate justice Marvic Leonen told court personnel that artificial intelligence may be used to assist judicial work, but must never be allowed to decide cases, as he defended the SC’s new governance framework for AI in the judiciary.
Speaking at a July 1 briefing in Baguio City attended by trial court judges, clerks of court, legal researchers, and stenographers from the Cordillera region, Leonen said only Scriptix — the judiciary’s voice-to-text transcription tool — is currently allowed for use in courts, while any other AI application would require approval from the Supreme Court En Banc.
The briefing, titled “Digitalization & Artificial Intelligence in the Courts of Justice,” formed part of the rollout of the judiciary’s “Governance Framework on the Use of Human-Centered Augmented Intelligence in the Judiciary,” which the SC En Banc approved on Feb. 18, 2026.
Leonen, who headed the working group that drafted the framework, drew a sharp distinction between AI as a support tool and AI as a decision-maker.
A machine may assist in research, scheduling, drafting, and analytics, he said, “but it may never adjudicate.”
He warned that even when AI systems can produce polished legal writing or mimic a judge’s style, they do not understand the law, the people behind a case, or the consequences of a ruling.
“The fabrication we politely call hallucinations are at once plausible but false. So a recommendation in sentencing or in a bail substitutes prediction for judgment and dresses the bias of the past in the robe of neutral science. The machine cannot reach the suffering behind the case filed, the credibility written in a witness’ silence, or the justice that a mere technicality would defeat,” Leonen said.
Leonen also used the lecture to push for broader court digitalization, arguing that paper-based processes continue to slow down proceedings, restrict access, and add administrative burdens. Digital systems, he said, can help address those problems by enabling remote filing, online hearings, and electronic records.
“Remote filing, online hearing, digital records remove the barrier of distance so that a marginalized litigant may participate without ruinous travel,” he said.
Still, Leonen said digital transformation comes with risks, including uneven internet access and the vulnerability of digital systems to tampering or cyberattacks.
“The question is never whether to modernize. It is whether we remain sovereign over the rules that we allow,” he said.
In explaining why the judiciary is taking a cautious approach to AI, Leonen said these systems rely on inductive reasoning — using historical data and patterns to predict likely outcomes — a method that sits uneasily with the demands of justice.
He said courts must confront two problems with that approach: that no amount of past data can guarantee what comes next, and that historical records themselves are not neutral.
“It tells us to stop thinking, and to stop thinking is the one thing a court must never do. The number arrives wearing the robe of neutrality,” he said.
Leonen added that law is often meant to move beyond the past rather than merely repeat it.
“Statistics treats the past as the best predictor of the future. That is its methodological commitment. But in law, the past may precisely be what we are trying to overcome. The entire apparatus of rehabilitation, probation, juvenile justice, restorative processes, rests on the premise that the person is not identical to what they have done.”
The AI governance framework is anchored on six principles: human primacy, explicability, auditability, equal access, institutional sovereignty, and continuous learning.
Leonen cited Scriptix as an example of “human primacy” in practice, saying the transcription tool does not replace court stenographers because its output still has to be reviewed for accuracy.
“No matter how accurate the transcript is, the stenographer will still look over it and make sure that it is accurate,” he said.
He ended the briefing by stressing that digitalization and AI are not the same thing. Digitalization refers to shifting court processes from paper to digital systems, while AI is only one layer on top of that transition — and one that, he said, remains fundamentally limited because it is ultimately “a machine for prediction.”
