Within the framework of the Italian Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and in collaboration with the University of Pisa, the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) organises on the 17th and 18th of March 2022 a joint meeting between its Working Groups on Quality of Justice (CEPEJ-GT-QUAL) and on Cyberjustice and Artificial Intelligence (CEPEJ-GT-CYBERJUST).

One main point of the event, held inside Pisa University’s Aula Magna, will be to propose the creation of a Resource Center on Artificial intelligence and Cyberjustice, a central database able to collect and provide documents, materials, software, tools and practices useful to create a common place where to exchange information to bring forward the digital transformation and the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence’s applications to the judicial system. This meeting will also be the occasion to define the concrete work of the CEPEJ in these topical aspects for the European judicial systems.

Dr. Ramin Garagurbanli (Azerbaijan), President of the CEPEJ, Dr. Raffaele Piccirillo, Chief of Cabinet of the Minister of Justice and Dr. Paolo Mancarella, Rector of the University of Pisa will open the meeting on the 17th.

Engineer Vincenzo De Lisi, General Director of the DGSIA at the Minister of Justice and Dr Paolo Ferragina, Vice-rector in ICT of Pisa University, will present the future possibilities of co-operation within the framework of the CEPEJ.

On the 18th of March, the two working groups of the CEPEJ will meet separately to discuss about various topics regarding the implementation of the CEPEJ European Ethical Charter on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in judicial systems and their environment. Moreover, they will address the recent creation of the CEPEJ European Cyberjustice Network and various other topics like the accessibility to justice for vulnerable groups or development of e-auctions.

“It is an honour and a great opportunity for the University to be able to host such an event which strengthens our cooperation with the Tribunal of Pisa, a collaboration which began in 2020 with an Agreement Protocol. These meetings enable us to participate to the more and more current debate on the application of new technologies to the judicial system – comments Paolo Mancarella, Rector of the athenaeum – The University of Pisa is at the forefront both in terms of Data science and Artificial Intelligence studies and I believe this institution can contribute extensively to this ongoing transformation, following the path already laid-out by projects such as the ones with the Superior School of Judiciary, developed with the already-mentioned collaboration with the Tribunal, strongly wanted by its President Maria Giuliana Civinini, whom I kindly thank”.

“Since its creation in 2002 the CEPEJ has given an incredible contribution to the improvement of the quality of justice following common European standards, based on the principle of the rule of law and of the human rights protection – states the President of the Tribunal Maria Giuliana Civinini – It is also of great importance the commitment of the CEPEJ in the field of new technologies and Artificial intelligence, events like this have the precise aim to bring forward this project aimed at combining law and technology. Moreover, we are thankful for the support to this initiative given by the University of Pisa, an institution with which the Tribunal has a long-lasting collaboration and from whose partnership can be developed many other projects like this one”.

This article was first published on 15 March by University of Pisa.