Chief Justice Gesmundo highlights human-centered AI in Philippine Judiciary

Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo highlighted the Philippine Judiciary’s ongoing digital transformation before an international gathering of judges and legal scholars at Stanford University in California.

Chief Justice Gesmundo emphasized that as courts around the world, including the Philippines, embrace AI and digital transformation, technology must remain a tool that serves people.

“In our own innovation journey, we move fast on experimentation. But we move carefully on the core of what courts do: rights, due process, security, and public trust. Those are things a court cannot afford to break,” Gesmundo said.

He made the remarks as he delivered the speech titled “Global Innovation Network to Build the Rule of Law: The Philippine Experience” at the Rule of Law and Democracy Conference held at Paul Brest Hall, Stanford Law School, on 26 September 2026.

He was joined by Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justices Jose Midas P. Marquez and Raul B. Villanueva.

Also present were Chief Technology Officer Atty. Jed Sherwin G. Uy and Deputy Chief Justice Staff Head Atty. Antonio Ceasar R. Manila.

The two-day conference, themed “Judicial Transition, Administration, and Innovation,” brought together judges, scholars, and policymakers from around the world to discuss judicial transitions, judicial accountability, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in courts.

Chief Justice Gesmundo spoke as part of a panel titled “Building a Global Judicial Innovation Network to Promote the Rule of Law,” alongside Chief Justice Meagan Flynn of the Oregon Supreme Court, Justice Kwek Mean Luck of the Supreme Court of Singapore, and Alejandro Ponce, executive director of the World Justice Project.

He noted how the Judiciary has accelerated its digital transition because “the mandate of equal and responsive access to justice demands it.”

He stressed, however, that these reforms must remain anchored on the needs of those they are intended to serve.

“Technology is a mechanism, but people are the purpose. An innovation network that connects systems without connecting human hearts and minds will fail to protect the Rule of Law.

“True transformation is not merely technical—it is deeply human.”

As an example of this people-centered approach, Chief Justice Gesmundo cited the Philippine Judiciary’s Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations 2022-2027 (SPJI), its blueprint for modernizing the administration of justice.

“In the Philippines—an archipelago of over 7,000 islands—access to justice is physically and geographically complex. When we designed [the SPJI], we recognized that modernizing our courts must not be an exercise in adopting technology for technology’s sake.”

The same principle guided the SC’s adoption of the Governance Framework on the Use of Human-Centered Augmented Intelligence in the Judiciary.

Gesmundo explained that the framework deliberately uses the term “human-centered augmented intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence” to emphasize that AI is merely a support tool that complements judges, court personnel, and court users, while preserving the primacy of human judgment in all judicial functions.

Gesmundo said, “When we centered our reform narrative on the lives of ordinary citizens, our judicial workforce stopped viewing new systems as disruptive burdens. They began viewing them as instruments of public service and dignity… Innovation succeeds when court staff, lawyers, and litigants see themselves not as passive subjects of technological change, but as active co-authors of a more responsive judicial system.”

He also mentioned the Philippines’ role in regional judicial cooperation dating back to November 2005, when the SC hosted the International Conference and Showcase on Judicial Reform, which adopted the Manila Declaration for a 21st Century Independent Judiciary.

The declaration became the founding document of the Asia Pacific Judicial Reform Network.