Legal Citations AI hallucinations

It has been mentioned in overseas cases that A.I. can “hallucinate” case references. This South African High Court case is an important cautionary tale on using A.I. for your legal research. Judge Bezuidenhout was considering an application for leave to appeal at the Pietermaritzburg High Court, KwaZulu-Natal Division. The judge noticed something amiss with a case citation and asked the court researchers to check the cases. Of the nine cases referred to and cited, only two could be found to exist, albeit that the citation of one was incorrect. The judge had serious concerns and wanted to afford counsel an opportunity to provide the authorities she relied on. It emerged that a candidate attorney had drafted the supplementary notice of appeal. The candidate attorney came to court to explain the origin of the cases cited and she denied having used an artificial intelligence application such as ChatGPT to assist with her research.

A court should be able to assume and rely on counsel’s tacit representation that the authorities cited and relied upon do actually exist. Counsel blindly relied on authorities provided to her by the attorneys, without checking the references when addressing the judge at the initial hearing. The firm issued the supplementary notice of appeal, drafted by a candidate legal practitioner without anyone, or at least her principal, checking if it was properly done and if the authorities cited were indeed correct, or did in fact exist. An inordinate amount of legal and judicial resources were spent trying to find the authorities referred to in court by counsel as well as in the supplementary notice of appeal. In the judge’s view, relying on A.I. technologies when doing legal research is irresponsible and downright unprofessional. The application for leave to appeal is dismissed and as part of the order the registrar is requested to send a copy of the judgment to the Legal Practice Council for its attention and further action.

Mavundla v MEC: Department of Co-Operative Government and Traditional Affairs KwaZulu-Natal and Others (7940/2024P) [2025] ZAKZPHC 2 (8 January 2025) (saflii.org)

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