Colombian court holds its first hearing in the metaverse

As part of its strategy to streamline legal processes and venture into the use of new technologies, a Colombian court has held a hearing in the metaverse, where participants in a traffic dispute appeared as NFT pieces in a virtual courtroom.

This is the first instance of this type in the country and it took place on February 15 by the Administrative Court of Magdalena, preceded by Magistrate María Quiñones Triana.

The hearing involved a regional transport union against police and took place over two hours and the magistrate said it felt more "real than a video call".

Despite the fact that the event received almost 70,000 views on YouTube, some users commented that the choice of the digital setting in which the parties are represented as avatars gave little credibility to the seriousness of the occasion.

However, after the success of this experiment, Quiñones believes that there could be more hearings like this in the not too distant future:

"This is an academic experiment to show that it is possible there... but where everyone agrees, (my court) can continue to do things in the metaverse," he said.