It is 2036. Justice is no longer experienced primarily as a sequence of court events. For most citizens and businesses, it functions as a responsive public service — accessible through secure digital channels, capable of directing matters toward resolution pathways proportionate to their complexity.

All processes are digital by default. Paper, handwritten signatures, in person attendances have disappeared in relation to virtually all civil disputes, right up to the hearing, and in most cases hearings are also conducted online, or based on filed evidence and submissions.

Very few disputes reach a traditional hearing. Instead, they enter structured digital resolution environments designed to clarify issues early, support negotiation, and narrow contested questions. AI tools support all parties to understand the relative strength of their case, predict the likelihood of success, and the range of potential outcomes. All of this occurs mostly prior to judicial attention, and results in high rates of settlement.

Proportionality is no longer aspirational. It is embedded in the architecture.

Simple matters conclude within weeks. Intermediate disputes resolve within months. Only the most complex cases occupy extended judicial time — and even these benefit from clearer evidentiary records assembled through structured digital processes.

Timeliness, particularly in the resolution of small civil matters, is viewed as a critical element of a fair justice system and is a visible expression of institutional legitimacy.

Artificial Intelligence as Enabling Capability

Artificial intelligence operates quietly within the infrastructure, largely invisible to users but materially shaping system performance. It assists with document analysis, identifies relevant precedents, supports scheduling, monitors compliance, and helps surface emerging risks within large datasets.

AI tools also play a critical role in identifying users with vulnerabilities or special needs. Once identified these users are connected to appropriate support services, such as community legal centres and domestic violence support services, for example.

Crucially, judicial authority remains human.

No binding determination is made without accountable decision-makers, but judges also benefit from the availability of AI tools, which provide case summaries, map inconsistencies or evidentiary gaps, assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of the parties position etc. All automated processes are reviewable and contestable by design. Over time, public confidence has grown not because machines replaced judgment, but because governance frameworks ensured suitable guardrails were in place and that judgment remained transparent.

The early fear that automation might erode fairness proved misplaced. Properly governed, it strengthened consistency while allowing human expertise to concentrate where it matters most.

Resolution as an Ecosystem

What distinguishes this modern system is not technology alone, but integration.

Courts, tribunals, regulatory bodies, enforcement agencies, and administrative platforms now operate as components of a broader resolution ecosystem. Matters move across institutional boundaries without requiring citizens to navigate those boundaries themselves.

Secure interoperability with identity frameworks enables reliable participation. Payment rails support immediate compliance with financial orders. Regulatory data reduces duplication. Enforcement actions occur with fewer procedural delays. One of the features most appreciated by users is the application of the once only principle - you only ever need to supply a document once. This applies across the entire justice ecosystem-system, and even more impressively the principle applies across all government departments and agencies.

For users, the system feels coherent rather than fragmented.

This coherence has become a quiet marker of state capability.

Public Authority, Private Capability

The infrastructure is publicly governed but not exclusively publicly built. Carefully structured partnerships allow private technological capability to support innovation while judicial independence and democratic accountability remain intact.

Standards, rather than ownership, determine participation. Multiple providers operate within defined governance frameworks, ensuring resilience without compromising authority.

The early policy debates proved decisive here. Jurisdictions that clarified these boundaries attracted sustained investment while preserving public trust.

The judiciary remain independent and fully funded by the government, but the technology infrastructure was modernised by the private sector, financed by debt and equity underwritten by government guarantees as to dispute volumes passing through the system, similar in structure to the creation of PEXA in the property transaction space.

Economic and Social Effects

As resolution timelines shortened, secondary effects have become visible. Businesses price risk with greater confidence. Contracting activity has expand. Citizens engage more readily with formal processes they perceive as accessible rather than forbidding.

Justice functions more recognisably as economic infrastructure. It is no longer a cost to the government.

Perhaps most importantly, compliance with settlement agreements and judgments very high, because financial orders can be automatically enforced through integration with other government functions including Revenue NSW and the ATO. Orders that translate predictably into outcomes reinforce institutional credibility — and credibility, once strengthened, tends to compound.

What Made the Transition Possible

Looking back, the transformation was less about technological breakthrough than institutional choice.

Governments that approached redesign architecturally — rather than layering digital tools onto legacy processes — avoided the trap of incrementalism. Governments established parallel digital jurisdictions, allowing capability to scale, giving users a choice of fora and without shutting or destabilising existing courts. Over time, volumes shifted naturally toward the environments best suited to handle them.

Shifting platform operational responsibility to approved and regulated private sector actors, also allowed innovation to take place without the constraints associated with dependence on budget allocation from the public purse.

The legitimacy of the justice sector has survived because judicial authority and independence, good governance, and accountability are designed into the eco-system. The transition to a modern digital justice eco-system kept access to justice as the central principle and North Star, ensuring the system was designed to meet the needs of the user.

The Enduring Question

The future was shaped by a belief that an effective system of justice was critical infrastructure — worthy of the same deliberate design applied to transport, energy, and financial systems.

From vantage point of 2036, this appears less visionary than pragmatic. As societies grow more complex, the infrastructures that sustain trust and underpin productivity must evolve accordingly.

The justice transformation occurred not for efficiency’s sake, but because it faced a crisis of legitimacy, and legitimacy, as ever, is the currency upon which durable institutions depend.

Justice systems are entering a period of structural redesign. Advances in artificial intelligence, digital identity, and public data architecture have reshaped how societies resolve disputes and enforce obligations. What once appeared administratively complex is increasingly understood as a question of institutional architecture — how authority is exercised, how decisions are governed, and how legitimacy is sustained at scale.

A View from the Near Future

It is 2036. From this vantage point, the most striking development is not the technology itself, but the quiet reconfiguration of institutional practice. Justice is no longer experienced primarily as a sequence of court events. For most citizens and businesses, it functions as a responsive public service — accessible through secure digital channels and capable of directing matters toward resolution pathways proportionate to their complexity and consequence.

Processes are digital by default. Paper, handwritten signatures, and routine in-person attendances have largely receded from civil justice. Hearings persist where they add procedural value, but many matters are determined on structured digital records supported by filed evidence and submissions.

Very few disputes proceed directly to a traditional hearing. Instead, matters increasingly enter structured resolution environments designed to clarify issues early, support negotiation, and narrow contested questions before judicial attention is required. Analytical tools assist parties in understanding the relative strength of their positions, the likelihood of success, and the plausible range of outcomes. Much of this occurs upstream of adjudication, contributing to sustained settlement rates.

Proportionality is embedded in the architecture rather than treated as an aspiration. Simpler matters often conclude within weeks. Intermediate disputes resolve within months. Only the most complex cases occupy extended judicial time, and even these benefit from clearer evidentiary records assembled through structured processes.

Timeliness — particularly in lower-value civil matters — is increasingly understood as a component of procedural fairness and a visible expression of institutional legitimacy.

Artificial Intelligence as Enabling Capability

Artificial intelligence operates largely in the background of the infrastructure, materially shaping system performance without displacing human authority. It supports document analysis, identifies relevant precedents, assists with scheduling, monitors compliance, and helps surface risks within large datasets.

These systems also assist in identifying users who may require additional support. Where indicators of vulnerability appear, individuals are more readily connected to appropriate services, including legal assistance and specialist community organisations. Access to justice is therefore addressed not only through court process, but through coordinated institutional response.

Judicial authority remains human. Binding determinations continue to rest with accountable decision-makers, supported — but not supplanted — by analytical tools that provide case summaries, map evidentiary gaps, and clarify points of contention. Automated processes are reviewable and contestable by design.

Early concerns that automation might erode fairness have, in many jurisdictions, given way to a more measured assessment: when governed appropriately, these capabilities have strengthened consistency while allowing human expertise to concentrate where judgment is most consequential.

Resolution as an Ecosystem

What distinguishes the contemporary system is less the presence of technology than the degree of institutional integration.

Courts, tribunals, regulatory bodies, enforcement agencies, and administrative platforms increasingly operate as components of a broader resolution ecosystem. Matters move across institutional boundaries with reduced need for users to interpret those boundaries themselves.

Secure interoperability with identity frameworks supports reliable participation. Payment infrastructure enables prompt compliance with financial orders. Regulatory data reduces duplication and procedural friction. Enforcement actions occur with greater administrative continuity.

One widely observed feature is the practical application of the “once-only” principle: individuals and businesses typically supply core documentation a single time, with authorised reuse across the justice system and, in some jurisdictions, across government more broadly. For users, the system is experienced less as a series of institutional encounters and more as a coherent public function.

This coherence has become a quiet indicator of state capability.

Public Authority, Private Capability

The infrastructure is publicly governed but not exclusively publicly built. Carefully structured partnerships allow private technological capability to contribute to system modernisation while judicial independence and democratic accountability remain intact.

Standards — rather than ownership — increasingly determine participation. Multiple providers operate within defined governance frameworks, supporting resilience without diluting public authority. Early policy choices proved consequential: jurisdictions that clarified these boundaries tended to attract sustained investment while preserving public trust.

The judiciary remains independent and publicly funded, while elements of the technological infrastructure have, in some instances, been financed through debt and equity supported by government volume guarantees — arrangements analogous to earlier national infrastructure initiatives. Such models have enabled innovation without complete dependence on annual public expenditure cycles.

Economic and Social Effects

As resolution timelines shortened, secondary effects became more visible. Businesses priced risk with greater confidence. Contracting activity expanded. Citizens engaged more readily with formal processes they increasingly perceived as accessible rather than forbidding.

Justice came to function more recognisably as economic infrastructure — part of the operating machinery that supports transactional confidence and social stability — rather than solely as an administrative cost centre.

Compliance with settlements and judgments improved in many environments, aided by more reliable links between adjudicative outcomes and enforcement mechanisms. Financial orders that translate predictably into real-world effect tend to reinforce institutional credibility, and credibility, once strengthened, often compounds.

What Made the Transition Possible

Looking back, the shift appears less a product of technological breakthrough than of institutional choice.

Governments that approached redesign architecturally — rather than layering digital tools onto legacy processes — were generally better positioned to avoid the limits of incrementalism. Several established parallel digital jurisdictions, allowing capability to scale while existing courts continued to operate. Over time, user behaviour and case volumes gravitated toward the environments best suited to particular dispute types.

In some contexts, transferring defined operational responsibilities to regulated private actors supported innovation while maintaining public oversight.

Institutional legitimacy endured because judicial independence, governance, and accountability were designed into the ecosystem from the outset. Access to justice remained a central organising principle, shaping pathway design and reinforcing the system’s orientation toward user need rather than procedural inheritance.

The Enduring Question

The trajectory of reform was shaped by a growing recognition that an effective justice system constitutes critical national infrastructure, deserving of the same deliberate design historically applied to transport, energy, and financial networks.

From the vantage point of 2036, this recognition appears less visionary than pragmatic. As societies grow more complex, the infrastructures that sustain trust and underpin productivity must evolve accordingly.

Justice did not become more responsive solely in pursuit of efficiency. It adapted because institutions confronted a mounting legitimacy challenge — and legitimacy remains the currency upon which durable public systems depend.