Key facts
The Federal Supreme Court (FSC) is Switzerland’s highest court. Each year, it hears between 7,000 and 8,000 appeals against decisions made by lower courts. It employs 40 judges and over 170 court clerks. In 2024, its total expenditure amounted to almost CHF 115 million, of which just under 7% was spent on IT services. The FSC develops and operates its own IT environment. It is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) with the aim of increasing efficiency in its daily work. Since 2021, the Federal Supreme Court has been using AI for quality assurance when anonymising judgments. In 2025, it introduced ChatTF, an internal alternative to com-mercial language models such as ChatGPT.
The Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) examined the use of AI systems at the Federal Supreme Court, focusing on these two applications. The main question was whether the Federal Supreme Court works more efficiently thanks to AI. Closely linked to this was the question of whether the use of AI complies with the principles of trustworthiness. Possible synergies with other federal courts were also examined.