Database of Legal Positions of the Supreme Court: Uniformity of Jurisprudence Online

In 2023, almost 101,000 cases were pending in the Supreme Court, with more than 83,000 of them filed within a year. This is a tremendous amount of data. Processing them quickly and efficiently requires not only a lot of professionals but also special software tools. One of them is the Database of Legal Positions. What is it, how does it work, and what is its purpose?

The Database of Legal Positions is an innovative IT product developed with the support of EU Project Pravo-Justice, launched in mid-2021. It is intended to make it easier for lawyers to search for case law of the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights so that they can better evaluate a case's prospects and get an overview of the most current opinions on the application of the law.

Moreover, the tool aims to help judges ensure the uniformity of jurisprudence, i.e., consistent interpretation of the law on similar issues (conflicting decisions cannot be in line with the law) and reasonable time limits for case consideration. As a result, it will help reduce the number of quashes of first-instance or appellate court decisions. This is all extremely important in the context of European integration of Ukraine, in particular, ensuring the investment attractiveness of the state.

Since its launch, the Database of Legal Positions has proved to be very effective. As a kind of archive, it contains cases with unique legal opinions that can be applied in thousands of other similar cases. Initially, the Database was available only to judges, but thanks to its constant technical improvement with the support of foreign donors, it has eventually become open to a wide range of users. For example, according to the latest updates presented at the end of 2023, the tools for searching for relevant jurisprudence have been improved. They have become much better and faster due to the introduction of AI features.

How does it work? The catalogue of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence (legal classifier) is systematised according to the areas of legal relations where a particular decision was rendered (administrative, commercial, civil, criminal jurisdiction). Moreover, unlike other sources, the Database has no duplicate entries.

You can read both the full text of the judgment and its abridged version - the legal position on a particular issue. If there is a judgment by the ECtHR on this topic, it will also be immediately available. Therefore, a lawyer can gain full knowledge of the legal issues resolved in a particular case.

The Supreme Court's database of legal positions enables searching for the required jurisprudence by large text fragment, keyword(s), text document, or link to a court decision extracted from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.

Currently, efforts are underway to improve the accuracy and accessibility of legal positions in the Database for both the legal community and the public. In the near future, it is planned to launch a new, intuitive and user-friendly interface, as well as a mobile version of the platform. Furthermore, the search algorithms will be actively enhanced through integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Why is it important? For lawyers and judges, this means tremendous time saved on searching, which will help them free up time to resolve legal issues. Although these are only the first steps in using AI for justice, this is the foundation that will help to make the entire Ukrainian judicial system more transparent and efficient, making its decisions more predictable and stable and ultimately helping to minimise external influence.

Eventually, the Database of Legal Positions will help to increase the level of trust towards the courts. Uniform approaches to justice will allow citizens to feel that the law is the same for everyone. This is precisely what the rule of law principle envisages.

The text was first published in the regular blog of EU Project Law-Justice at LB.ua.