ACCYDED - Citizens Association Against Corruption and for the Defense of the Rule of Law

Artificial Intelligence

IA

European and national institutions fear the arrival of artificial intelligence in citizens' hands. We wanted to find out why, so we put a simple question to this "cursed tool": what do you call more than forty years of failure to guarantee citizens' equality before the law? Its blunt answer should shame those who have allowed, encouraged or promoted it.

An awkward question for a machine

Europe has rushed to regulate artificial intelligence. In 2024 the Union adopted Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the first comprehensive law on the subject; that same year the Council of Europe opened for signature its Framework Convention on artificial intelligence and human rights, democracy and the rule of law; and as early as 2018 the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) adopted an ethical charter on its use in judicial systems. The concern is legitimate: a tool able to process and organise information on a vast scale can be awkward for those who prefer opacity.

So we ran an experiment. Without wishing to disrespect any honourable citizen, we asked an AI to put a name to the repeated failure, over more than four decades, to uphold the principle of equality before the law proclaimed in Article 14 of our Constitution —a principle called into question by the very existence of aforamientos, the special criminal jurisdiction reserved for office-holders.

The diagnosis

The answer was as quick as it was forceful. According to the machine, such a situation could be described as:

  • Systemic injustice.
  • Structural inequality.
  • Persistent discrimination.
  • Chronic inequity.
  • Continuing violation of rights.
  • Historical marginalisation.
  • Institutionalised exclusion.

Every one of these expressions reflects the seriousness and persistence of a prolonged failure to guarantee the most basic element of the rule of law.

Who is responsible?

Since curiosity is a "sin", we kept asking. Who might be responsible for that failure? The AI pointed to responsibility shared among several actors:

  1. The executive and the administration: successive governments that have not pursued effective policies to guarantee equality before the law, and officials who apply it unevenly.
  2. The legislature: lawmakers who pass rules that do not guarantee equality or who fail to reform those that breach it.
  3. The judiciary: judges and courts that interpret or apply the law inconsistently, and a system that is inaccessible or ineffective and offers no real remedies.
  4. Oversight bodies, national and international, when they fail to monitor, report or exert enough pressure.
  5. Parties, opinion leaders and the media, when they normalise or hide inequality and block the debate that is needed.
  6. Civil society itself, when it does not demand respect for equality forcefully enough.

In short, the three branches of the state, their oversight bodies and an all-too-patient citizenry have, by action or omission, helped sustain a system that fails to guarantee that we are all equal before the law.

Strasbourg closes the door

Mark the date: 6 August 2024. That day the European Court of Human Rights declared our application against aforamientos inadmissible, without examining the merits. It did so despite being the very court charged with upholding Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination in the enjoyment of rights and freedoms on any ground, including birth, property or "other status".

The paradox is plain: the machine identifies without hesitation a structural discrimination that courts, both national and European, refuse to examine.

If a machine can name injustice in seconds, what excuse is left for institutions that have failed to see it for forty years?

The machine cannot vote; you can

Artificial intelligence can help with the diagnosis, but it cannot reform laws or demand accountability. That falls to us, the citizens. We call for the abolition of aforamientos, for public authorities to honour the equality mandate of Article 14 of the Constitution, and for civil society to stop being the passive link in this chain. We are undoubtedly making history; we invite you to write it with us.

Further reading