For an... "artificially intelligent" process: when access to justice and efficient court management go hand in hand

It is generally understood that Covid-19 pandemics, in exacerbating already existent inefficiencies of the judicial systems, at the same time offered them an opportunity to cope with them. Indeed, problems such as the court backlog, intensified by the delay accumulated during the pandemic; the digital divide, made more pressing by the need to initiate and conduct proceedings electronically, itself a source of doubts as to the current need for physical hearings and, consequently, the for proximity of the Courts, were already known to the States. Similarly, for some years now, there has been a widespread awareness that, in order to achieve a better rationalization of resources, procedural reforms are not sufficient. That is why the presentation do not discuss the latest Italian procedural reform in detail, nor its criticalities. Rather, it focus on an apparently minor provision, which looks instead capable of explaining effects that go well beyond those imagined by the Legislator and whose interest may transcend national borders, namely article 46 of the Code of civil procedure Implementing Rules. As the presentation try to demonstrate, this proviso, if fully exploited, could combine with weak artificial intelligence (AI) tools and with already known caseload management techniques to ensure greater rationalization of judicial resources and easier access to justice.