Turkey’s justice ministry has rolled out an artificial intelligence tool across its judicial network designed to predict the affiliation a suspect might have with criminal and terrorist organisations, according to an official statement.

The "native and national" initiative is named the CBS Organisation Prediction Project. "CBS" refers to the chief public prosecutor’s office. The project is integrated within the Turkish judiciary's informatics system, or UYAP.

Dissolves all troubles

The statement published by the directorate general for information technology on the UYAP portal is presented in the form of a marketing campaign text that evangelises an end to difficulties.

It reads: “The artificial intelligence model 'CBS Organisation Prediction Project', developed by the ministry of justice general directorate of information technology, serves our judges and prosecutors.

"Developed by our general directorate using native and national resources, the AI-supported CBS Organisation Prediction Project analyses the case file to predict which organisation there may be a link to based on information in the file, thereby preventing incorrect or incomplete organisation records from being made.

"Assisting our judges and prosecutors during judicial activities, the CBS Organisation Prediction Project automatically matches organisation details with the terror organisation information registered in the system, preventing human error and incomplete data entries.

"Significantly increasing the accuracy of judicial statistical data and reports requested by auditing bodies, the CBS Organisation Prediction Project also enhances the data management quality of our judicial system.

"Trial periods are shortened with the CBS Organisation Prediction Project.

"With the CBS Organisation Prediction Project, all of our judges and prosecutors now have a digital assistant capable of supporting and assisting them in their decision-making processes.

"Through the CBS Organisation Prediction Project, [Turkey] has also managed to enter the ranks of pioneering countries that use artificial intelligence in the judiciary.

"Our general directorate continues with determination and resolve to develop human-centric artificial intelligence initiatives and projects like the CBS Organisation Prediction Project.”

Pressure to assign

In Turkey’s world-renowned judicial system, pressure on prosecutors to assign a criminal organisation to a detainee is often apparent. As one example of difficulties in the assignation, the Osman Kavala case has earned global infamy.

Kavala is among Turkey’s "star prisoners". The media tags him with many labels such as "philanthropist" or "the Turkish George Soros". He is a businessman. It is not clear exactly what crime he is supposed to have committed to drive the sheer determination shown by the country's judiciary to keep him in jail, where he's been for around a decade.

In the first few years of his imprisonment, he was tried for committing organised crime. That provided for long periods of "pending trial" incarceration under arrest. The problem was Kavala was the only suspect in the case, but organised crime requires at least two suspects.

To overcome that difficulty, prosecutors came up with a criminal organisation and charged the organisation in question with orchestrating the Gezi protests, which were held across the country against Turkey’s then PM, current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, back in 2013.

The Kavala case has run for years and has cost Turkey too much humiliation before the world.

Assigning a criminal organisation to a detainee has become a daily burden. Orders are received to detain targets. Police are instructed to execute home raids during early morning hours. Then, the police hold the suspects at a police station under detention for a few days before delivering them to prosecutors at courthouses. At this point, the prosecutors are obliged to assign a criminal organisation to the detainees. Only by doing so can they request that the judge keep them under arrest pending trial.

Superior solutions

In December, local journalist Ozgur Erbas (@zgrerbas) drily presented an AI-based “Jailmatic” system for the automatic imprisonment of opponents that would mean no squandering of billions paying for judicial procedures.

In its statement on the CBS Organisation Prediction Project, the justice ministry emphasised that the tool is human-focused and strictly designed to assist, rather than replace, judicial oversight.

The ministry’s solution could be headed for top marks in appraisals. The marketing shysters can talk of a tool that does not threaten the posts of prosecutors and prevents the emergence of complications before local and international higher courts in political operations.