The Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, has published the Pakistan entry in its AI Justice Atlas project, mapping the growing use of artificial intelligence across Pakistan’s criminal justice system.
As part of the Institute’s wider work mapping the use of AI across justice systems internationally, the Pakistan entry examines developments across law enforcement, courts, legal practice and access to justice, together with the emerging regulatory framework governing the use of artificial intelligence.
Kilam Law supported the Oxford team in connection with its review of developments in Pakistan.
The entry finds that AI adoption is currently most advanced within law enforcement. Safe City projects and related initiatives increasingly employ technologies including facial recognition, automatic number plate recognition, surveillance analytics and predictive crime mapping.
The judicial sector is also beginning to experiment with AI. The entry discusses initiatives including JudgeGPT, the Sindh High Court’s AI-enabled legal research tools and a growing ecosystem of Pakistani legal technology platforms. These include AI Attorney, QanoonAI, Pakistan Law Bot, DigiLawyer, Digital Wakeel and Your Munshi.
The Oxford Institute’s Pakistan entry also highlights Kilam Law’s collaboration with EnablifyAI on AI enablement for in-house legal teams, reflecting the growing adoption of AI not merely as a legal research tool but as part of broader legal workflows.
Regulation Begins to Catch Up
A significant part of the Pakistan entry examines the developing legal framework surrounding AI.
It considers Pakistan’s National AI Policy 2025 and the National Guidelines for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Judicial Institutions of Pakistan issued in April 2026. The judicial guidelines emphasise human oversight, transparency, ethical integrity, privacy, data security and accountability, while permitting AI-assisted applications including case management, legal research, predictive analytics and the preparation of initial summaries and draft materials.
The entry also considers the implications of existing Pakistani law for AI-generated or AI-processed evidence, including the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order 1984, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016.
It notes, however, that Pakistan still lacks comprehensive AI-specific legislation and that proposed personal data protection legislation remains unenacted.
This regulatory gap is particularly significant as increasingly sophisticated AI systems interact with sensitive areas such as biometric surveillance, criminal records, automated profiling, evidence and judicial decision-making.
Taimur Malik: “The Debate Has Moved from Adoption to Governance”
Commenting on the publication, Barrister Taimur Malik, Senior Partner at Kilam Law and Founder of Courting The Law, said:
“The significance of this work is that it shows how quickly the debate around artificial intelligence in Pakistan is changing. We are no longer discussing AI simply as a future technology. It is already being deployed across policing, legal research, judicial administration and legal practice.
The next challenge is therefore governance. Pakistan needs a framework which enables innovation while drawing clear boundaries around high-risk uses of AI, particularly where constitutional rights, personal data, liberty or judicial decision-making are involved.
Technology should augment lawyers, judges and public institutions rather than displace human responsibility. The principles of due process, accountability, transparency and human oversight must remain central as these systems become more sophisticated.”
Prof Philippa Webb on Pakistan’s Entry into the AI Justice Atlas
Prof Philippa Webb said:
“Pakistan’s entry marks an important addition to the AI Justice Atlas. Courts across South Asia are adopting AI fast, and the Atlas exists so that judges, researchers and policymakers can see what is actually happening in comparable jurisdictions rather than working in silos. We are very grateful to our partners in Pakistan for their hard work on this.”
The publication comes at a time of growing debate within Pakistan over the appropriate legal and institutional framework for artificial intelligence. Questions surrounding AI governance are increasingly likely to intersect with constitutional law, privacy and data protection, professional responsibility, evidence, access to justice and public-sector accountability.
The Pakistan entry in the AI Justice Atlas provides an important baseline against which that debate, and Pakistan’s rapidly developing AI ecosystem, can now be assessed.
The full entry is available from the Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.
