A judge in Colombia took a different approach to the law and set up a virtual courtroom in the Metaverse and got participants of the court who couldn’t reach the court to attend the session in the digital world.
A Colombian court held its first legal trial in the metaverse this month and now plans to play with virtual reality again, as per a report by Reuters.
Participants in a traffic disputes court appeared as avatars in a virtual courtroom during the two-hour session conducted by Colombia’s Magdalena Administrative court. The avatar of the presiding judge, Magistrate Maria Quinones Triana was dressed in black legal robes.
The nation of Colombia was among the first in the world to test actual court proceedings in the metaverse, with realistic virtual reality used to make digital places feel more genuine, with characters portraying each player.
“It felt more genuine than a video conversation,” Quiones said in an interview with a local news station, calling the metaverse encounter “amazing.” “Many individuals switch off their cameras, you have no clue what they’re doing,” she said, about hearings conducted over Zoom.
The particular case, filed by a regional transportation union against the police, will now be handled partially in the metaverse, possibly including the judgement, according to Quiones. She did not rule out conducting other hearings on the metaverse.
“This is a scholarly exercise to demonstrate that it is feasible… but where everyone consents to it, the court can continue to do things in the metaverse,” she added.
While legal proceedings have increasingly shifted to virtual meetings held on Zoom and Google Meet, few have experimented with the metaverse, a place that Meta, Microsoft, and other tech titans are racing to create.
Early instances of encounters in the metaverse were ridiculed for their clumsy, cartoonish visualisations.
Nonetheless, Colombia’s judicial procedures on February 15 – which were broadcast on YouTube – went off without a hitch, barring some dizzying camera movement and distorted motions.
Quiones reiterated the virtual tribunal’s constitutional validity, but admitted that the trial had been unpopular, with 70% of viewers disapproving.
According to Juan David Gutierrez, a public policy expert at the Colombia’s University of Rosario, the use of the metaverse in legal processes is still in its early stages.
“This requires technology that only a select few have. This raises concerns about access to justice and equity,” he exclaimed.
Quiones concurred that it was necessary to address costs and accessibility. However, she argued for the metaverse in instances of abuse, where people can share a place without physically seeing each other.
“We generate the illusion that technology will make things more effective, but it often does the reverse,” said Gutierrez, stating that judges in Colombia are looking for methods to relieve the country’s overburdened judicial system.
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