EU AI Act and the Judiciary

The European Artificial Intelligence Regulation

The EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) is the world's first comprehensive AI legislation. It classifies AI systems by risk levels.

Risk Classification

1. Unacceptable risk (prohibited): subliminal manipulation, social scoring, real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces
2. High risk (Annex III): includes systems used in the administration of justice
3. Limited risk: chatbots (transparency obligation)
4. Minimal risk: most AI applications

Annex III: Justice as High Risk

Annex III expressly includes AI systems used to:

• Assist judicial authorities in investigating facts and law
• Apply law to specific cases
• Influence election or referendum outcomes

This means any AI tool used by a court to assist in sentencing, analyze case law, or assess procedural risks falls under the high risk category.

Obligations for High-Risk Systems

• Documented risk management system
• High-quality, representative training data
• Logging and traceability of decisions
• Transparency: clear information about how it works
• Effective human oversight
• Accuracy, robustness, and cybersecurity

Application Timeline

• February 2025: unacceptable risk prohibitions
• August 2025: obligations for general-purpose models
• August 2026: full application of Annex III (high risk)