A computer "judge" that can predict verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights with 79% accuracy has been developed. Computer scientists at University College London and the University of Sheffield have developed an algorithm that can not only weigh up legal evidence but also moral considerations.As early as the 1960s experts predicted that computers would one day be able to predict judicial decisions.The new method is the first to predict the outcomes of court cases by getting a computer to analyse case text ."We don't see artificial intelligence replacing judges or lawyers but we think they'd find it useful for rapidly identifying patterns in cases that lead to certain outcomes," said Nikolaos Aletras, who led the study at UCL."It could also be a valuable tool for highlighting which cases are most likely to be violations of the European Convention on Human Rights."To develop the algorithm the team allowed an artificially intelligent computer to scan the published judgments from 584 cases relating to torture and degrading treatment, fair trials and privacy.The computer learned that certain phrases, facts or circumstances occurred more frequently when there was a violation of the human rights act. After analysing hundreds of cases, the computer was able to predict a verdict with 79% accuracy."Previous studies have predicted outcomes based on the nature of the crime or the policy position of each judge, so this is the first time judgments have been predicted using analysis of text prepared by the court," said co-author Vasileios Lampos."We expect this sort of tool will improve efficiencies of high-level, in-demand courts but we need to test it against more case data submitted to the court."Ideally, we'd test and refine our algorithm using the applications made to the court rather than the published judgments, but without access to that data we rely on court-published summaries."The team found that judgments by the European Court of Human Rights were often based on non-legal facts and not simply legal argument, suggesting that judges were often swayed by moral considerations and did not stick strictly to the legal framework. ..