A Human Centred Framework Can Align Artificial Intelligence Assisted Legal Research with Access to Justice and Digital Inclusion in Uganda’s Superior Courts

Imagine a courtroom where the judge must find the right laws to decide a case, but the library of legal books is vast, scattered, and sometimes missing pages. For centuries, lawyers and judges have hunted through these books manually, a slow process that can leave people waiting years for justice. Today, a new tool has arrived: artificial intelligence. This is not a robot judge that decides cases on its own, but a powerful computer program that can read millions of documents in seconds, find connections between old cases, and summarize complex arguments. It promises to make the search for legal truth faster and easier. However, just as a new road can bypass small towns and leave them behind, this technology risks leaving people without internet access, digital skills, or money further behind. If the tool is only available to the wealthy or the well-connected, it could make the justice system more unfair, not less. The question facing the legal world is not whether this technology works, but how to use it without breaking the promise that justice is available to everyone.

In Uganda, where the courts are working hard to modernize and reduce backlogs, a researcher named Javason Kamugisha has asked how to introduce this powerful tool without losing the human heart of the law. The country is already moving toward digital courts, with judges and lawyers beginning to use computers and online databases. But Kamugisha argues that simply buying the best software is not enough. If the system is not designed carefully, it could deepen the gap between those who have access to technology and those who do not. It could also create a situation where judges rely too much on a computer's suggestion, forgetting that the final decision must come from a human mind guided by the constitution. To solve this, the researcher developed a new plan, called the Human-Centred AI Access to Justice Framework. This is not a piece of code or a new law, but a set of rules and ideas that places people and fairness at the center of how the technology is used.

The core idea of this framework is that artificial intelligence should act as a helpful assistant, not a replacement for the judge. In the current legal system of Uganda, the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, and the High Court make decisions that set the rules for the whole country. These judges need to find past decisions, known as precedents, to ensure they are treating similar cases in similar ways. The new framework suggests using AI to help find these past cases quickly, to check if a citation is correct, and to summarize long judgments. But it insists that a human must always check the work. The computer might find a pattern, but only a human judge can understand the unique story of the people involved and decide what is fair. The framework argues that if a judge uses a computer to find a law but does not understand why the computer picked it, the judge has lost their independence. The tool must remain a tool, never the master.

One of the biggest risks the paper identifies is that the technology might not work for everyone. In Uganda, internet access and computers are not evenly shared. A lawyer in the capital city might have fast internet and expensive databases, while a lawyer in a rural village might struggle with slow connections and no access to digital records. If the new AI system only works well for those with the best equipment, it will create a two-tier system where the rich get better justice than the poor. The framework addresses this by demanding that the government and the courts build a system that works for everyone. This means making sure that legal databases are available to all courts, not just the big ones, and that judges and lawyers in remote areas get the same training as those in the city. It also means designing the software so that it can understand different languages and help people with disabilities, ensuring that no one is left out because of how they speak or how they move.

Another major concern is that the computer might be biased. Artificial intelligence learns by reading huge amounts of text. If the computer only reads the most famous court cases or only cases written in English, it might miss important laws from local communities or decisions made by lower courts. This could lead the computer to suggest answers that are incomplete or unfair. The framework says that the people building these systems must be careful to include a wide variety of legal documents, including those from local traditions and different regions. They must also be honest about what the computer can and cannot do. If the system cannot explain why it chose a certain law, it should not be used in a courtroom. The goal is to keep the process open and clear, so that anyone can see how a decision was reached.

To make this happen, the researcher proposes a step-by-step plan for the courts. First, the judges and lawyers must be trained. They need to learn not just how to use the computer, but how to question it. They must understand that the computer can make mistakes, just like a human can. Second, the courts must build strong security to protect private information, because the computer will be reading sensitive details about people's lives. Third, the government must create a committee of judges, lawyers, and technology experts to watch over the system. This group would check regularly to make sure the AI is working fairly and not causing harm. Finally, the plan suggests starting small. Instead of rolling out the technology to every court at once, the courts should test it in a few places first. This allows them to see what works and what does not before they spend a lot of money or change the whole system.

The paper concludes that the technology itself is not the problem. The problem is how we choose to use it. If Uganda adopts artificial intelligence without a plan to protect fairness, it could make the justice system worse. But if they use this new framework, they can build a system that is faster, smarter, and more fair for everyone. The framework is a guide to ensure that the computer serves the people, rather than the people serving the computer. It is a reminder that no matter how advanced our tools become, the heart of justice must remain human. The researcher suggests that this approach could be a model for other countries in Africa and beyond, showing that technology and human rights can grow together if we are careful to keep the focus on people. The work does not claim to have solved every problem, but it offers a clear path forward for a future where technology helps everyone find justice, not just the lucky few.