The choose proudly notes that she will be able to now difficulty as much as 20 rulings in every week, a considerable improve from the 4 rulings she managed earlier than adopting Copilot.
She makes use of the AI assistant every day for transcriptions, summarizing hearings and drafting numerous judicial paperwork. Copilot additionally aids in reviewing grammar and wording, evaluating draft rulings and managing inside knowledge.
“For us, that is magic… These instruments have come to facilitate and enhance judicial work,” Quiñones says.
A far-reaching AI plan
Colombia’s judiciary is among the many first in Latin America to embrace AI. The nation’s constitutional courtroom dominated in 2024 that judges may use AI instruments to hurry up processes underneath particular guidelines.
The judicial governing physique then issued rules in December, mandating that judges evaluation and confirm any AI-generated data and disclose its use. The rules additionally prohibit the usage of free AI chatbots and the usage of AI to “assess proof, scrutinize details, make worth judgments, or clear up authorized issues,” like drafting ultimate rulings.
On the similar time, digital hearings have turn into more and more frequent in Colombia. What started as a necessity in 2020 in the course of the pandemic, has turn into a staple within the nation’s judicial course of. In 2024, digital hearings grew to 1.1 million, accounting for round 80% of complete hearings, with Groups changing into the unique supplier in October.
The Copilot beta program, launched final yr, is ready to broaden to some 150 members, together with judges and clerks, says Johanna Pimiento, head of digital transformation at Colombia’s judicial governing physique.
The first motivation for utilizing AI is the excessive stage of backlog charges, Pimiento factors out. “Judges are continuously overwhelmed … they usually want to have the ability to present extra well timed responses. That’s why we’re eager to start out utilizing AI instruments.”
Greater than 2.5 million circumstances had been pending decision in 2023, the newest yr obtainable, which represents half of all circumstances, in response to Colombia’s judicial authority. The typical caseload for a Colombian choose in 2023 exceeded 800 circumstances. An administrative ruling, as an illustration, takes 10 years on common to be resolved, in response to the judicial authority’s knowledge.
Using expertise doubled the amount of complete hearings within the nation within the final 14 years, to almost 1.4 million in 2024, Pimiento says, and the introduction of Copilot is predicted to additional improve judges’ productiveness and effectivity.
Whereas some judges are proof against digitalization, most have welcomed the shift, recognizing the advantages of AI in making their work extra manageable, Pimiento says, though correct coaching, knowledge privateness and potential knowledge breaches are among the many prime challenges.
Microsoft’s privateness insurance policies and dedication to knowledge safety are a number of the key causes for Colombia’s judiciary to accomplice with the corporate, in response to the judiciary’s head of digital transformation. Copilot runs on Microsoft Azure, making certain that customers retain possession of their knowledge, which is rarely shared with third events or used for advertising and marketing functions, she factors out.
Enchancment in effectivity
Potential advantages are manifold. Judges and their groups will be extra productive. Bizarre residents can achieve entry to justice whereas saving treasured time due to digital hearings since they don’t have to journey to the courtroom, and it helps legal professionals too.
Lawyer, Roberto Serrato, estimates that digital hearings and AI have reduce the period of judicial processes in half, whereas additionally enhancing transparency and accountability of judges and different public officers by facilitating attendance for all events concerned. “The effectivity of the judiciary has tremendously improved” with the usage of expertise, he says.
The probabilities of Copilot utilized to justice are nearly countless, Quiñones provides: “It has a thousand spectacular issues … That is one thing we couldn’t humanly do earlier than.”
For example, she just lately requested Copilot to match a draft ruling despatched by a colleague with all earlier rulings obtainable on one particular subject. She obtained a solution in seconds. With out Copilot, the choose says, her workforce would have spent an entire morning searching recordsdata. Quiñones makes use of inside knowledge—over 10,000 digitalized authorized circumstances gathered and archived over time.
The choose has even created customized Copilot prompts to streamline her workflow whereas utilizing a number of different platforms, together with Microsoft Energy Automate and SharePoint, instruments that optimize work processes and handle content material. She then shares finest practices with the opposite judges taking part within the beta program by means of a Groups chat.
Born in Bogotá, Quiñones attended a navy faculty whereas pursuing a profession as a high-performance sprinter. Each experiences instilled in her the self-discipline and effectivity she now seeks to deliver to the judiciary, she says.
Her experiences as a police officer first and later as a lawyer, uncovered her to the challenges of the judicial system, sparking her curiosity in utilizing expertise to enhance entry to justice, a subject she ultimately explored in her thesis.
For the choose, the final word aim of integrating expertise is to supply higher public service, particularly to these with fewer sources, and be extra accountable.
It’s a priority that has significantly troubled her ever since she learn No One Writes to the Colonel, one among her favourite books by Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, who was born within the Magdalena area.
Within the novella, a colonel waits endlessly for a authorities pension that by no means arrives, which Quiñones sees as a metaphor of the gradual tempo of justice: “That’s what occurs in Colombia’s justice system and in lots of different locations, folks ready and ready for years to get a solution from the administration.”
In the meantime, the choose can’t disguise her delight in being acknowledged for her function within the integration of expertise and the usage of AI within the judiciary. She typically jokes that, in contrast to different dad and mom who battle with even the TV distant, she teaches her two youngsters use units.
“For me, it’s the alternative—I’m all the time the one exhibiting them how issues work,” Quiñones says with a smile.
High picture: Colombian choose María Victoria Quiñones, who has championed the usage of AI for years, at her workplace in Santa Marta, within the Magdalena area. Photograph by Federico Ríos Escobar.