Artificial intelligence is preparing to land in Alicante, with a pilot program that will roll out in commercial courts. Sources from the Palace of Justice confirmed to this newspaper that an effort is underway to modernize working methods and speed up procedures at the Palace of Justice. The administration has long faced complaints about relying on 19th-century media in a 21st-century system, where technological delays often slow things down.
The program will be tested in Commercial Courts, beginning with bankruptcy cases involving individuals. This type of procedure has surged in recent years as economic conditions worsened, intensifying demand on the courts. Some individuals unable to meet debts due to reduced income have sought help from law firms specializing in debt settlement. So far this year, around 900 bankruptcy procedures have overwhelmed the system.
“The procedures are highly complex and cumbersome, driven by the sheer volume of documents from diverse sources,” commented Cesar Martinez, senior judge in Alicante, to this newspaper. The project envisions artificial intelligence handling the collection and verification of documents. The Alicante province hosts three Commercial Courts and an additional court in Elche; with the Eighth Part of the Hearing responsible for resolving objections to decisions made by these bodies. During this period, the Ministry of Justice and the Directorate General of Information and Communication Technologies (DGTIC) are finalizing the use of this technology with a multinational company to accelerate processing of cases.
The idea is to apply this to bankruptcy proceedings first, with the potential to extend to other matters and jurisdictions depending on initial outcomes.
background check
Olive Column, president of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Valencian Community, has underscored the importance of these new tools for modernizing justice. “With this technology, 242,000 criminal records were canceled ex officio across Spain in 2021, benefiting 230,000 plaintiffs and saving about 7,000 hours of civil-servant time, according to the Ministry of Justice,” he noted in the judicial year’s opening address. Yet this progress does not always align with the pace at which courts adopt new technologies. The push to implement new laws governing the organization of the judiciary and the shift from paper to digital files has advanced unevenly.
During his remarks, De la Oliva emphasized the distance between the current state and a fully connected, tech-enabled system. “Before we reach a more immediate future, we must improve the tools we already have,” he stated, offering examples of weaknesses. “We urgently need a new procedure management system, as past attempts to change it have not produced the expected results. We also need computer systems that can seamlessly interact with other governments and reliable video-conferencing tools to avoid delays and costly administration,” he added. A common hurdle is the incompatibility of systems when communicating with the computers of other autonomous communities.
The Ministry of Justice already employs various AI-powered tools to assist court work, though these are not yet available across all Alicante courts. A lawyer for the Administration of Justice noted that communities without delegated powers tend to deploy such technologies more quickly. There is ongoing evaluation of how data is collected and analyzed to support court statistics and decision-making.
Current uses in some Spanish courts include anonymizing judicial decisions to allow public access without exposing personal data, classifying documents, rendering textual summaries of decisions, managing auctions, sending electronic notifications, and calculating sentence accumulations.
human factor
The President of the Court of Alicante and a current judge of the Supreme Court, Vicente Magro, told this newspaper that artificial intelligence offers many possibilities for the justice system, but it remains a tool that can err. Human oversight is essential.
Magro notes that AI can be very helpful in identifying relevant case law. He cites the Observatory against Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, where gathering penalties for sexist crimes consumes substantial time. “These tools can speed up work considerably, for example in recidivism checks and statute-of-limitations matters. They enable rapid collection of large data sets, which is invaluable,” he said. The potential benefits include faster analysis and better data-driven decisions, provided human judgment remains central to the process, ensuring accuracy and fairness in every step of the way.