Artificial Intelligence and the Right to Due Process: Can Machines Make Fair Decisions?

Introduction

In a world where algorithms decide who gets a loan or which candidate is shortlisted for a job, the line between human judgment and machine logic has blurred fast. Artificial Intelligence is transforming global governance and justice systems. But as AI begins to play a role in decisions affecting individual rights, one key question crops up: Can machines accord due process and uphold the principles of fairness, equality, and justice that underpin human rights law?

The Promise and Peril of Algorithmic Decision-Making

With AI-driven systems, the promise of efficiency, consistency, and objectivity abounds. The increasing use of predictive algorithms by governments for policing, welfare distribution, and judicial risk assessment often makes critical decisions regarding individual lives dependent on those systems. In theory, machines are unbiased since they process data without emotions or prejudice. In practice, AI often mirrors the biases embedded in its training data or programming. When such systems impact human rights outcomes, such as who gets arrested, who receives aid, or whose content is censored, the stakes get dangerously high.

A classic example is the COMPAS algorithm, which has been used in US courts to predict the risk of recidivism. It later turned out that it disproportionately labeled African-American defendants as “high risk,” showing how algorithmic decisions can flout equality before the law. Similarly, with AI tools starting to assist in legal research, surveillance, and administrative governance in India, the questions of transparency and accountability are becoming increasingly urgent.

Due Process in the Age of Automation

Due process of law, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution and protected under international instruments like Article 14 of the ICCPR, holds that no person shall be deprived of life or liberty except by a procedure that is fair and reasonable. The rule of law presupposes that people have a right to know how and why a decision affecting them is arrived at.

But AI systems often work like black boxes, whose decision-making processes remain inaccessible even to their creators. When a machine’s output determines someone’s rights, but its internal logic is unexplainable, the fundamental right to due process is threatened. People cannot meaningfully challenge a decision if they do not understand the grounds on which it was made.

The Right to Explanation and Algorithmic Accountability

With this in mind, many legal scholars promote a right to explanation, meaning people should have the right to understand how that automated system arrived at its decision. The EU's General Data Protection Regulation already includes such a principle: transparency over automated decision-making.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the emerging National AI Strategy are indicative of early recognition of this challenge in India. However, such safeguards on algorithmic accountability and explainability remain an evolving area. Without such standards, AI-driven governance may result in violations of the basic principles of natural justice, more so audi alteram partem, the right to be heard.

Balancing Innovation with Human Oversight

It is not a question of rejecting AI but of regulating it within the constitutional morality framework. AI may only aid, and not supplant, human decision-makers in areas that affect fundamental rights. Human oversight is necessary to bring empathy, context, and fairness—all of which machines inherently lack.

This approach underlines that courts and governments must adopt a human-centered AI approach, emphasizing transparency, periodic audits, and ethical review mechanisms. International bodies like the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, 2021, have already called for embedding human rights principles into the design and deployment of AI.

The Road Ahead: Constitutionalizing Algorithmic Justice

As the Indian legal system progresses toward digital transformation, from e-courts to AI-assisted judgments, it becomes critical to extend constitutional guarantees in the digital realm. The concept of algorithmic justice needs to evolve as an intrinsic part of constitutional due process.

Law schools, researchers, and policymakers should draft an AI Ethics Code that suits the constitutional values of India, ensuring efficiency is never at the cost of equity. It is time that the judiciary also started articulating principles for algorithmic transparency, in the way it expanded the right to privacy in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017).

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence offers immense potential to transform governance and law, but if left to unmonitored automation, it risks building a justice system without accountability. Due process rights must be revised to meet the challenges of this digital era, recognizing that fairness is about human dignity, participation, and transparency.

In the end, there is one timeless principle on which the legitimacy of any decision, by a judge or a machine, must rest: not only must justice be done, but it must be seen to be done.

This article is authored by Bhavika Bijlani, who was among the Top 40 performers in the Quiz Competition on International Human Rights organized by Lets Learn Law.