First instance court decisions will become available online next year, with the application of artificial intelligence techniques in the anonymization of cases and in the database of jurisprudential judgments.
The announcement was made during the signing ceremony of a protocol for the installation and development of the “anonymizer” application by the SCJ and its availability and extension to the courts, including the courts of first instance. The protocol was signed by the president of the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ), Henrique Araújo and the vice-president of the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM), Luís Azevedo Mendes.
According to the protocol, from February or March 2024, the websites of the courts will be able to put online the court decisions they consider most important or relevant.
In view of the development of this project (IRIS) – which represents an investment of 280,000 euros, co-financed by EU funds – in which two computer functionalities are created: a database of case law judgments, and a tool for anonymizing judgments that will be made available to all courts, through a protocol with the Superior Council of the Judiciary, Henrique Araújo and Luís Azevedo Mendes considered this to be “good news” for the courts of the different instances.
According to the president of the STJ, these applications will enable “savings in human resources” and “total transparency in the activity of the courts”, improving access to decisions.
For the vice-president of the SCJ, the new IT tools will allow for faster online posting of judicial decisions.
During the meeting, the journalists present recalled that they have been waiting for nine months for the delivery of the investigative decision in the Operação Lex case before the STJ, whose delay is allegedly justified by the need to anonymize this case, which has former magistrates of the Lisbon Court of Appeal as defendants.
In another dimension, the vice-president of the SCJ revealed that there is an intention to extend the jurisprudential database to Portuguese-speaking African countries, announcing that this technological tool will be presented at the next Cape Verde Technology Summit.
The protocol signed today between the STJ and the SCJ, which will be able to use and make the computer application freely available to the courts, will be in force for a period of four years, automatically renewable for equal periods.
