A South African court has ordered a legal inquiry into a law firm’s use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) following the discovery of fabricated case law citations in a high-profile appeal. The issue came to light during proceedings involving local politician Godfrey Mavundla, who had returned to court after his suspension as mayor of Umvoti local municipality. The case prompted a judge to question the validity of the legal references used by the law firm, which led to revelations that some of the citations appeared to have been fabricated using AI.
The case in question was brought before the Pietermaritzburg High Court, where Judge Elsje-Marie Bezuidenhout discovered that of the nine cases cited by the law firm Surendra Singh and Associates, only two could be found in the country’s legal records. The revelation raised suspicions that the firm might have used AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to generate fake case law references.
In her ruling, Judge Bezuidenhout ordered the law firm to cover the legal costs of the application personally and referred the matter to the Legal Practice Council for further investigation. The firm’s actions came under scrutiny after it was revealed that an articled clerk had provided case law references to counsel for the appeal. However, neither the clerk nor the counsel had properly verified the citations before presenting them to the court.
Mavundla had previously challenged his suspension in a lower court and secured an interim interdict, but Judge Bezuidenhout had rescinded this order. Mavundla returned to court to appeal the ruling, but during the appeal hearing, Judge Bezuidenhout became suspicious of the cited case law.
“I checked my notes and asked the chief stenographer to listen to the recording, but this was the exact reference provided by Ms. Pillay,” the judge said, referring to the counsel handling the case. Upon further inspection, it became clear that the majority of the cases cited by the firm did not exist in the official South African legal records or on the South African Legal Information Institute’s (SAFLII) website.
The judge tasked law researchers at the high court to look into the appeal and verify the citations. They found that of the nine cases referenced, only two were valid, and even one of those had an incorrect citation. When the issue was raised in court, counsel for Mavundla, Ms. S. Pillay, explained that the citations had been provided by an articled clerk employed by Surendra Singh and Associates. Pillay admitted that she had not personally reviewed the cases before using them in her arguments, citing her heavy caseload and time constraints.
The articled clerk, now identified as a candidate legal practitioner, explained that she had sourced the references from law journals through an academic portal. However, when questioned further, she was unable to identify the specific journals she had accessed and later admitted to not being able to recall the search process. When asked directly if she had used AI tools like ChatGPT to assist with her research, the clerk denied any such use, though suspicions remained that AI-generated content may have contributed to the inaccurate citations.
The matter was temporarily adjourned while efforts were made to retrieve the relevant legal cases. However, the law firm’s inability to provide copies of the cases during the adjournment raised further doubts. The firm’s owner, Suren Singh, attempted to justify the situation by stating that as an “elderly practitioner,” he faced difficulties obtaining the cases, resorting to Google searches for references.
Judge Bezuidenhout ultimately concluded that neither the attorney nor the counsel had intentionally misled the court, but criticized their negligence in conducting proper due diligence. “It seems that the attorneys were simply overzealous and careless,” the judge remarked. “In this age of instant gratification, this incident serves as a timely reminder to the lawyers involved in this matter that when it comes to legal research, the efficiency of modern technology still needs to be infused with a dose of good old-fashioned independent reading.”
The judge also noted that a simple check of the citations would have caught the errors before they reached the court, stressing the importance of thoroughness in legal research. While the judge did not find grounds for misleading the court, she expressed concerns about the clerk’s research methods, leaving the matter of AI use unresolved.
