UK Courts issue Position Statement on Judicial use of AI

New Position Statement on AI

Master of the Rolls Sir Colin Birss, Lead Judge for Artificial Intelligence, on 9th October 2026 issued the UK Courts and Tribunals Judiciary’s Position Statement on the Judicial use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

This complements the Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Guidance for Judicial Office Holders of 31st October 2025, which includes the following on judicial engagement with evidence: “AI tools may assist, but they cannot replace direct judicial engagement with evidence”.

The Position Statement follows pilots on whether AI can support functions such as: summarisation; transcription; redaction; writing in accessible language; administrative / leadership tasks; chronology-building; and document analysis.

The core principles are stated to be:

“1. The use of AI must remain consistent with the judiciary’s overarching obligation to protect the integrity of the administration of justice and to uphold the rule of law.

2. Judicial decisions will be taken by a judicial office holder. AI may assist, but it must not displace reasoning, evaluation of evidence or the exercise of judicial discretion.

3. Judicial independence, impartiality, fairness, accountability, confidentiality and security must be preserved at all times.

4. Human oversight is essential. Every AI output used in judicial work must be reviewed, verified and approved by the responsible judicial office holder. The judicial office holder remains fully accountable.

5. The judiciary is taking a cautious but positive approach to AI adoption, supported by pilots, evaluation, training, governance and transparency, to maintain public confidence and uphold open justice.”

The Position Statement continues:

“9. Only approved AI tools may be used for judicial purposes…  Their features must include:

• UK data residency
• Enterprise data protection
• Disabled web access

10. AI tools must not determine the outcome of a case or displace judicial reasoning, analysis or discretion.”

Lord Briggs: “[W]e are going to have to think hard about what human qualities are never going to be supplanted by robots”

Meanwhile, two Supreme Court Justices have recently given speeches wrestling with thorny issues for courts and judges thrown up by AI.

First, in his address to the Oxford Civil Justice Systems in the 21st Century Conference in May 2026, Supreme Court Justice Lord Briggs – recently confirmed as the next Supreme Court President – asked some difficult questions on the role of the Court in the AI era.

Positing a possible “tsunami of claims without adequate mechanisms in place to cope”, Lord Briggs stated that: “AI is going to have to come to the rescue of court staff and judges” and then posed questions which are, frankly, difficult for any common law practitioner to read:

“what precisely are the courts going to use AI for?” (§ 34)

“can or more importantly should AI replace the human element which currently lies at the heart of judging – and if so, for what kinds of cases?” (§ 38)

“Should, or should not, AI be used by the courts instead of judges?” (§ 39)

“Who or what does the public want as the arbiter of their disputes?” (§ 39)

“And how much will they be prepared to pay out of their taxes for the expensive human elements in the process if robots can do it on a limitless scale, more quickly, more cheaply and (perhaps eventually) almost as well?” (§ 39)

Lord Briggs memorably observed (at § 41): “[W]e are going to have to think hard about what human qualities are never going to be supplanted by robots”.

Lord Briggs made three broad suggestions:

“Firstly, to begin the process of designing procedural rules to govern the AI-based innovations that will become absorbed into the civil justice system, we should start thinking now about the probable applications of AI. This means considering what litigants and the courts could be enabled to use AI for… and how the sorts of risks that are known to be associated with AI – at least at present – might be addressed. Examples:  “… If AI is going to be used regularly by LIPs or counsel to draft applications or written submissions, should there be procedural rules mandating the disclosure of their use of AI?” [§ 43]

Secondly… consider the approaches of other jurisdictions which were early adopters of AI. For example… Brazil has… regulated judges’ use of AI in certain ways… [§ 44]

Thirdly, given how rapidly AI is advancing… think about whether our current system for producing rules of civil procedure is sufficiently agile to keep up with the technological advancements in civil process that AI is likely to produce…” [§ 46].

Lord Briggs noted (at § 47): 

“It may well be that procedure rules are not even the main way of keeping AI in the civil legal arena within democratically acceptable bounds. Other forms of regulatory discipline may need to be contrived, starting from ground zero rather than from the familiar confines of the CPR”.

Lord Sales: “The issue is not simply one of technical competence. It is one of constitutional legitimacy”

Meanwhile, in his even more recent address Artificial Intelligence, Constitutional Courts and Judicial Responsibility (02.10.26), Lord Sales, Deputy President of the Supreme Court, identified (at pp. 2-3) three opportunities presented by AI for constitutional courts:

“[1] … Properly deployed, it may help identify relevant materials, organise information, summarise documents and draw attention to potentially significant authorities. These functions do not involve judicial decision making. Rather, they assist judges in managing information which they must nevertheless evaluate for themselves…

[2] AI may assist courts in producing summaries of judgments, explanatory materials and other communications which make complex constitutional issues easier for citizens to understand…

[3] … If technology can reduce the burdens associated with routine administrative tasks, more resources may become available for core judicial work.”

He concluded (at p. 3): “Where technology can assist in the performance of lawful and appropriate functions, there is no reason in principle why courts should not take advantage of it”.

As to risks, Lord Sales noted (at pp. 3-4):

“[1] The most obvious is the problem of reliability.
AI systems… are capable of producing answers which appear plausible but are nevertheless incorrect. They may generate inaccurate citations, misstate legal principles or present false information with considerable confidence. The possibility of error means that AI outputs must always remain subject to scrutiny by human users.

[2] A second concern is transparency.
One of the central features of judicial decision-making is that reasons are given… The giving of reasons promotes accountability and permits public criticism… If decisions affecting rights or public power were significantly influenced by opaque algorithmic processes, important questions could arise concerning transparency and legitimacy.

[3] A third concern is confidentiality.
Constitutional courts frequently deal with sensitive information. Cases may involve matters of national security, private personal information or commercially confidential material. The use of AI therefore requires careful attention to questions of security and confidentiality.

[4] A fourth concern is institutional dependence.
The more capable AI becomes, the greater the temptation to rely upon it. Yet constitutional adjudication requires independent judgment… Even where AI performs well, courts must guard against the gradual erosion of habits of critical reasoning.”

In a section dealing with the judicial function (pp. 7-8), Lord Sales said:

“Many tasks performed within a court may properly be assisted by AI. Research, document management and administrative organisation are obvious examples.

The core judicial function is different. Understanding the nuances of context and the development of sound judgment of the kind I have described are not the tasks for which AI appears to be well-suited, at any rate as it exists at the moment.

Constitutional adjudication is not simply the identification of legal sources. It is a context which, pre-eminently among all the fields of legal adjudication, requires the exercise of sound judgment so as to preserve and not upset the democratic nature of politics. Judges must determine the significance of constitutional principles, assess competing arguments, weigh institutional considerations and provide public reasons for their conclusions.

Moreover, constitutional courts do not derive authority from expertise alone. Their authority rests upon accountability. A judgment is accepted because identifiable judges assume responsibility for it and because the reasoning is publicly exposed to criticism.

AI systems cannot bear constitutional responsibility…

For this reason the notion that AI might itself undertake constitutional adjudication seems misconceived.

The issue is not simply one of technical competence. It is one of constitutional legitimacy…”.

Former Master of the Rolls Vos: “lawyers are 100% responsible for all their output, AI generated or not”

In an earlier contribution to the AI debate – Speech by the Master of the Rolls at the LawtechUK Generative AI Event on 5th February 2025 – former Master of the Rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos spoke (at § 6) of the likely growth of AI liability disputes:

“… one of the biggest fields of legal activity in years to come is likely to be the claims that will be brought in respect of the negligent or inappropriate use of AI, and also the negligent or inappropriate failure to use AI. Lawyers will… be at the forefront of these AI liability disputes. That is why the UKJT is embarking on preparing a legal statement, similar to the ones it has prepared in relation to legal questions concerning digital assets, asking and answering questions like: “In what circumstances, and on what legal basis, will English common law impose liability for physical and economic loss caused by the use of AI? How does vicarious liability apply to loss caused by AI? When can a professional be liable for using or failing to use AI in the provision of their services?”.

[The Legal Statement on Liability for AI Harms was published on 9th July 2026 by The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT)].

In this important speech, Sir Geoffrey Vos clearly stated (at § 13) that: “lawyers are 100% responsible for all their output, AI generated or not” and then noted:

“19. I recently gave the Blackstone Lecture, which concluded by suggesting that the use of AI within the justice system was creating a completely new situation that necessitated a re-think about the fundamental rights of humans. I suggested that current regulatory tools such as the EU’s AI Act might not be sufficient to protect people from decisions being made by machines. It might not be enough, in the age of hugely capable machines, to legislate, as does the AI Act, that decisions must be taken by humans.

20. In a world in which machines are so much more capable than humans, it may become simply too time-consuming and expensive for anyone to check the integrity of every decision that machines recommend humans to make… I suggested that we, as humans, would want to decide which types of decision were, in the future, genuinely a human prerogative, and which types of decision we were content to be taken by machines. I was certainly not suggesting that machine-made decisions were inappropriate in many cases, but I suggested an early debate about the detail.

21. The legal community, internationally, not just here in the UK, needs to consider what kinds of advice and decision-making should and should not be undertaken by a machine.”

In his earlier Blackstone Lecture, Sir Geoffrey Vos referred to the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence adopted in Vilnius on 5th September 2024. He went on (at §§ 34-35):

“34. I have considered whether the existing ECHR and its sister, the American Convention on Human Rights of 22 November 1969 (ACHR) are sufficient to provide the relevant protections for human decision-making in areas where that is necessary and appropriate. For my part, I am not sure that article 6 of the ECHR covers the situation, because, even accepting that AI can introduce bias, we may well reach a stage where it will be demonstrable that AI decision-making is fair and impartial. Moreover, if the human makes the decision informed by AI, can it really be said that the tribunal is not independent and impartial. Secondly, I am not sure that article 8 of the ECHR covers the question, even if it can be construed imaginatively as we saw in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland. Other articles in the ECHR, ACHR and the Charter probably come nowhere close.

35. … [T]he current legal and regulatory approach to AI may well not be fit for purpose. If, as I think we should be, we are concerned as humans to be the ones deciding what decisions are to be taken and advised upon by machines and what decisions should not be, we will need to consider how that is to be achieved both nationally and internationally.”

The Isle of Man experience

For an earlier update on the Isle of Man experience on AI, see Coren Law, Use of smart glasses in Court – updates from jurisdictions facing novel threat (29.03.26).

Note for practitioners: The UK Courts’ new Position Statement on AI sets out core principles and indicates limits to use of AI tools. Separately, two Supreme Court Justices have recently raised difficult questions on the role of AI in the judicial process, and on the judicial function itself. In earlier contributions to the debate, former Master of the Rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos identified the potential for growth of AI liability disputes, and also questioned whether the ECHR was fit for purpose in respect of AI. 

Disclaimer: professional advice should be sought before applying any information in a given case.

For advice on Isle of Man civil procedure, legal issues relating to AI, and constitutional / administrative law, contact Coren Law.

See other Coren Law Legal Updates on civil procedure and AI.

See also Coren Law’s Isle of Man civil procedure portal: Click On | Coren Law.