26 September 2025, Estonian Knighthood House
Dear colleagues,
Thank you for the opportunity to share a few unrestrained thoughts here. I have, of course, never been a judge myself, and therefore do not in the least presume to teach how to reform the court system or the judiciary. As Professor Raul Narits made clear to us all already in our first year of studies, the supreme practitioner of law is the judge. And so it is.
However, throughout my professional life, I have made observations about learning and teaching law, as well as about leading organisations composed of lawyers or other top-level professionals. Perhaps these reflections may offer some possible angles both in identifying the causes of problems and in considering solutions.
In my view, decisions about human beings must always be made by human beings. Human beings must control machines – machines in the broadest sense. Humans must not place themselves in dependence on machines. Therefore, in my opinion, an educated, hardworking, creatively thinking, and justice-minded judge – a human being – must continue to exist also in the future. Of course, we all must use computers, machines, and artificial intelligence wisely in our various roles.
A judge cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence, as long as human society has not fundamentally changed. Perhaps voluntary arbitration between equal parties may, somewhere, be delegated to a robot with an artificial head. Nothing more in the near future. The point is that discretion and the creative, life-based reasoning of decisions are the only paths to fair, reasonable solutions that respect human rights. The complexity of life can only be understood by humans, because humans have emotions and creativity. Decisions determining a person’s fate cannot be entrusted to a machine – EU data protection law and AI regulations do not allow that either.
I fear we must all accept that in the future, fewer people in Estonia will need to do more and better. The battle for talent is already ongoing between professions. Young people have many exciting and lucrative options for the future. Law may not be among the very top choices for the best school-leavers – as perhaps it was in the early 1990s. Reportedly, too many of those who are strong both in mathematics and logical reasoning and in the humanities – exactly the qualities needed for legal work – leave for foreign universities. Applied law is, however, largely national. It is excellent if we can maintain the high reputation of our Faculty of Law. We must be able to. This is point number one when speaking about the future of the courts.
Most state institutions have expanded rapidly – sometimes through mergers, sometimes through budget tricks. Too often, the result is, in my opinion, less efficiency but greater unfairness in the allocation of resources. This is a systemic mistake in Estonia: trying to copy large states. We are too few; it does not fit us. Nor is it necessary.
The levers currently used to shape the state apparatus punish real efficiency, punish the adjustment of staff structures and portfolios to actual needs by cutting positions.
I know this may annoy some of you, but in my opinion, at least some of our courts are too big, not too small. The head of a court – as in any institution – must be someone who can also do the core work of the institution and actually does it. Someone who has gained authority through professional work. Someone who resolves cases themselves, while at the same time allocating work to others, supporting them and being a partner in discussions.
Every person needs human attention. Leading only through orders and prohibitions does not work in a collective of top specialists. Leadership must come through agreements and motivation, through providing the best possible working conditions.
A person must feel that their work is meaningful and that they are noticed and valued – even inspired, if you allow me. This is the cornerstone of modern leadership.
And at least our institution’s experience shows that eliminating internal competition and comparison raised motivation, speed, and quality of work.
Perhaps the reasons for excessive workload and burnout are partly found in court organisation and the general atmosphere? If so, maybe it would be better not to look for solutions in merging courts. Maybe resources currently spent on methodologies, measurements, and unfair comparisons could be used more effectively to reduce judges’ workload. Any such comparison – inevitably leading to unjust results – consumes working hours of court administration officials and judges, and worse still, generates bitterness. It clips wings and kills motivation. No human can do more than their abilities allow, and no one can be required to work around the clock every day. People can assess their own effort and workload, but not those of others – certainly not fairly. Such comparisons are a sure way to lose joy in work, because they too often lead to the conclusion that others have it better. Humans live through other humans. It is healthy not to envy, not to compare, not to consider oneself better or worse. If someone is simply lazy or incompetent, the issue should be addressed with that person, not by draining everyone’s time and energy.
Perhaps we should move towards a system where the president of the court, with the help of specialist assistants, allocates cases among judges in a way that maximises joy in work. Maintains the spirit of support within the court. Perhaps this is already the case. In any case, theory and practice both show that the larger the court, the harder it is for its president to be both a good judge and a good shaper of a supportive atmosphere, a negotiator, and a mediator. Greater specialisation can certainly be allowed if it suits the judges themselves. It just needs to be ensured that justice itself remains alive and develops, that positions evolve along with social change.
So: perhaps it would not be a bad idea to give up fiddling with methodologies for comparing branches of courts and judges’ workloads, and instead direct resources where they are most needed. We know where that is. Just as we know that, for example, an administrative case cannot reasonably be compared with a civil or criminal case, because the court’s role is different. An administrative court should be an active external control body over the administration, always on the person’s side, establishing the facts and the law itself. This idea has, in my view, been lost due to unfair comparisons. Perhaps I am wrong.
I thank the Ministry of Justice, the Council for Administration of Courts, and the judges for preparing numerous draft laws that will make court proceedings simpler and clearer. Judges as process leaders and top practitioners of law do not need so many artificial mandatory frameworks – nor do participants in proceedings.
It would be good if people had fewer reasons to go to court. Our own institution hopes to help here too, with the more than 2,500 substantive cases we handle each year with major resources – thank you to the judges who have noticed this, and it is always good when you can use our work – as well as with over 3,000 letters where nothing can be resolved, but where we try to reconcile people and power. For example, by explaining to a person that their concern has already been adjudicated even by the Supreme Court.
One may hope that laws will become clearer, and then there would be fewer lawsuits. Fortunately, the message of clarity has reached the legal world as well – convoluted verbosity is no longer valued, and contracts too can be written clearly.
In my opinion, limits should be set on the volume of materials submitted to court. For example: maximum 10 pages, only short, clear sentences with references to evidence and relevant annexes. Perhaps, in writing as well, shorter and clearer is better. Not only for the protection of people with disabilities and of nature. Every character typed into a computer – even if it never reaches paper – is pollution, justified only by real necessity.
Artificial intelligence should not become a genuine party to proceedings. Except in the case where society as a whole begins to trust artificial intelligence more than another human being. I do not know if judges have already experienced this, but our own institution has: when a person does not like our position, they run it through AI, which, as a sycophantic tool, replies: of course the person is right, and we are wrong! That Supreme Court judgment on which we based our position supposedly does not exist, or it is wrong as well.
We live in interesting times.
Thank you!
Tags
Rule of Law