The law enforcement practice (even involving electronic document circulation) demonstrates that decisions made by judicial bodies, including those by higher courts, in similar situations may vary. One of the options to deal with this issue is to change the findings made by judges with the findings generated by statistical, heuristic algorithms. The purpose of this article is to identify and justify the areas of the judicial process in which machine (computational) algorithms may be introduced, with relevant approaches, and also to elucidate the potential of IT-technologies in the judicial process as a means to increase the predictability of court decisions, and to illustrate this with some cases from the practice of IT-technologies use in the judicial process. Using the example of a procedural action – commencement of proceedings in a case, it is established that currently the use of an IT-system allows reducing the number of procedural errors ensuing from inattention and, besides, excludes the possibility of such an abuse of procedural law as “rolling” litigation with the aim of selecting a “convenient” judge. The author gives reasons for changing the approaches used for deciding a case in a court of law. According to the principles of competitiveness and disposition, a court of law should try the case within the framework of claims submitted by the parties and the rule of law chosen by them, and also based on the evidence provided by the parties. This will allow simplifying the introduction of algorithms significantly, since not only factual circumstances (smaller renvoi) but also the rule of law (larger renvoi) will become clearer. Therefore, modern IT-technologies are able to increase significantly the predictability of court decisions, with a further increase in their reliability, and also to help a judge in a trial, reduce the load on a single judge and mitigate the risk of judicial errors.

List of legal documents 
 

Legislation 
1. Konstytutsiia Ukrainy [Constitution of Ukraine]: Zakon Ukrainy [Law of Ukraine] vid 28 chervnia 1996 r. № 254k/96-VR. Vidomosti Verkhovnoi Rady Ukrainy. 1996. № 30. st. 141 (in Ukrainian). 
2. Poriadok nadannia vidomostei z Yedynoho derzhavnoho reiestru yurydychnykh osib, fizychnykh osib-pidpryiemtsiv ta hromadskykh formuvan [Procedure for Providing Data from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Non-Governmental Associations]: zatverdzhenyi nakazom Ministerstva yustytsii Ukrainy [approved by Order of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine] 10 chervnia 2016 r. № 1657/5, zareiestrovanym v Ministerstvi yustytsii Ukrainy 10 chervnia 2016 r. za № 839/28969. URL: http://zakon5.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/z0839-16/paran10#n10 (accessed: 30.11.2017) (in Ukrainian). 
 

Bibliography 
 

Thesis abstracts 
3. Tkachuk O, ‘Realizatsiia sudovoi vlady u tsyvilnomu sudochynstvi Ukrainy: strukturno-funktsionalnyi aspekt’ [‘Exercise of Judicial Power in Civil Proceedings of Ukraine: Structural and Functional Aspect’] (avtoref dys d-ra yuryd nauk, Kharkivskyi natsionalnyi universytet imeni V N Karazina 2016). 

Websites 
4. Kaneman D ta іnshі, ‘Shumy, ili vsegda li pravy jeksperty?’ [‘Noises, or Are the Experts Always Right?’] (Harvard Business Review – Rossija, Dekabr’ 2016) accessed 30 November 2017.