Judges raise concern over lawyers use of AI in cases

From using Chat GPT as a reference to using drafting cases and source authorities, Judges are now raising an alarm over the use of Artificial Intelligence in court.

On July 28, 2025, Justice Kizito Magare was settling a case between Michael Wambugu and James Mwangi.

The case involved an alleged Sh 97,200  debt, which Mwangi was demanding from Wambugu.

However, Justice Kizito noted that citations which Wambugu’s lawyer had included to back his case had never happened, or were simply fiction.

His case was thrown out and slapped with a Sh 45,000 cost.

“It is not edifying for counsel to cite fictitious decisions to the court, mostly generated from artificial intelligence. This is the essence of using the new reference system, which pins a case to a particular neutral citation,” he said.

At the same time, Justice Bahati Mwamuye struck out an application filed by Nayan Salva, who had sued the Kenya Psychiatric Association over alleged failure to provide him with information he required back in 2022.

However, Mwamuye was of the view that the authenticity of his claims could not be ascertained as they were derived from an AI.

“As law stands today, computer-generated or outputs of Artificial Intelligence cannot be a proper substitute for human-drawn documents. A party must draw and file its documents on its own accord and by its own hand through its legal representatives. The defects cannot be cured by an amendment,” he said and struck it out.

In the meantime, Justice Alexander Muteti overturned a robbery with violence verdict and sentence against George Onyango, after finding that the failure to produce a certificate vouching for the authenticity of the CCTV footage that was used to nail Onyango, was fatal. He said that without proper documentation, deep fakes and tampering could be used to nail innocent people.

“This becomes even more critical in this era of electronic transformation with the use of artificial intelligence. Originality and authenticity of electronic documents become key concerns now more than ever before,” said Justice Muteti in his judgment on April 28 last year.