By Margaret Mapando
Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs has urged Judicial Officers in the country to embrace the use of Artificial Intelligence, saying it has the potential to clear the backlog of court cases and help speed up court judgments.
Minister responsible, Charles Mhango, made the remarks in Lilongwe during an international conference for the Association of Law Reform Agencies in Eastern and Southern Africa (ALRAESA).
Mhango said there are complaints of a huge backlog of cases in our court systems, as the country uses human capability to do research, write and analyse issues to help the judge make an informed decision.
He further said the Ministry believes that AI can help to mitigate the challenges of backlogs in the country’s legal systems, especially in the judiciary.
He therefore called upon the judicial officers to adopt AI techniques to help them while balancing the challenges it brings.
Chairperson of the Association of Law Reform Agencies in Eastern and Southern Africa (ALRAESA), Rosemary Kumitsonyo Kanyuka, hopes that by the end of the conference, law reformers will learn how best they can use AI tools without it misleading them.
She added that this is an opportunity for them to gain knowledge to differentiate between the right and wrong applications to use.
The two-day conference, held from 20 to 21 November 2025, has brought together a regional grouping of law reform agencies from Eastern and Southern Africa.
It is being held under the theme: Artificial Intelligence and Law Reform in Africa: Re-imagining the Role of Law Reform Agencies in the Digital Era.
