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Guide to the Use of Generative AI in Court Proceedings

Practice Direction 1 of 2025

Guide to the Use of Generative AI in Court Proceedings
Citation
Practice Direction 1 of 2025
Primary work
Supreme Court Ordinance
Date
4 August 2025
Language
English
Publication
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Turks and Caicos Islands
Supreme Court Ordinance

Guide to the Use of Generative AI in Court Proceedings

Practice Direction 1 of 2025

  • Published
  • Assented to on 14 July 2025
  • Commenced on 4 August 2025
  • [This is the version of this document from 4 August 2025.]
ISSUED by the Chief Justice under section 17 of the Supreme Court Act and section 3 of the Chief Justice (Responsibilities) Act.PurposeThis Practice Direction which is issued with the approval of the President of the Court of Appeal and in consultation with the Chief Magistrate, Judicial Officers and the Bar Council of Turks and Caicos Islands, aims to provide guidance to court users in the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in court proceedings in a manner which is consistent with the overriding duty of the Courts to protect the integrity of the administration of justice, in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
1.Citation and commencementThis Practice Direction shall be cited as A Guide to the Use of Generative AI in Court Proceedings and shall commence on 4 August 2025 and remain in force until varied, replaced or revoked by the Chief Justice.
2.InterpretationIn this Practice Direction—"court users" includes attorneys, judicial and legal researchers, court clerks, legal officers/advisors, and self-represented litigants;"documents" means documents filed in court in text images, audio or video, as well as written submissions/skeleton arguments, and reports, but does not include affidavits, witness statements or other evidentiary material;"enterprise-grade AI" refers to AI tools designed with confidentiality protections, such as Westlaw Precision AI, Lexis AI, or other platforms offering secure professional services;"Generative AI (Gen AI)" means a branch of artificial intelligence that is capable of creating new content, including text and images or sounds that learns from vast datasets to understand patterns and structures, then generate outputs that mimic or complement the training data which may be sourced from global public resources or from a private body of material and the system may be available as closed source or open source;"hallucination" means the generation of apparently plausible, authoritative and coherent responses which may in fact be fictitious and includes false citations and fabricated legislative, case or other references;"LLM" means large language models produced from “scraping” public and private text sources where the LLM Programs use “chatbots” which prompt requests and refine requests from the users of such programs, for example, Chat-GPT, Google Bard, Co-Pilot, AI Media or Read AI, also ‘legal resources’ such as Lexis Advance AI, ChatGPT for Law, Westlaw Precision, AI Lawyer.
3.ApplicationThis Practice Direction shall apply to—
(a)all proceedings in all courts in the Turks and Caicos Islands; and
(b)both closed-source and open-source GenAI models.
4.Guiding principles for judicial officers
(1)Accountability: The Court will be fully accountable to the public for any potential use of AI in its decision-making function by—
(a)upholding fundamental rights: the Court will ensure its uses of AI do not undermine the right to a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal;
(b)ensuring accuracy: for any processing of judicial decisions, the Court will verify the results of any AI-generated outputs that may be used in its work; and
(c)achieving transparency: the Court will disclose use of AI in its decision-making and authorize external audits of any AI-assisted data processing methods that it uses.
(2)Where practicable, judicial officers are encouraged to verify GenAl-generated references cited in judgments, in the interest of transparency and integrity.
5.Guiding principles for Attorneys
(1)Accountability: Attorneys will be fully accountable to the court and to the administration of justice by—
(a)achieving ethical and legal obligations to the court as well as to clients which will require acquiring training in the use of GenAI models, ensuring transparency in the use of GenAI for legal work, and maintaining confidentiality of client information;
(b)demonstrating competence by training themselves on the capabilities and limitations of the GenAI models they use; and
(c)pursuing a commitment to judicial independence by using GenAI with circumspection including in the increasingly popular course of predicting legal outcomes.
(2)Legal research generated shall be verified against trusted legal databases and resources, for accuracy and against known or perceived biases.
6.Unrepresented litigants
(1)The unrepresented litigant who presents material before the court assumes responsibility for its accuracy and shall verify it for accuracy.
(2)It is the duty of the court to ascertain that the required verification has been done.
(3)The Court may facilitate access to free legal databases and develop plain-language GenAI usage guidance to assist unrepresented litigants.
7.Use of AI
(1)GenAI may be used to assist judicial officers and court users with material for court proceedings, including the drafting of documents, summarising information, and drafting decisions.
(2)Judicial Officers and court users assume full responsibility for the accuracy, appropriateness, and relevance of any material filed.
(3)AI use does not absolve the author of ethical or professional obligations.
(4)GenAI's usefulness depends on quality prompts therefore court users are encouraged to train themselves accordingly.
(5)A document produced using GenAI shall disclose that GenAI was used.
(6)GenAI shall not be used in affidavits, witness statements or other evidentiary materials which shall be produced from personal recollection.
(7)Information generated by GenAI shall be verified from official sources such as TCILII, court websites, or recognised legal databases.
(8)A classification table distinguishing permitted, prohibited, and leave-required uses is included in Appendix A.
8.Caution in use of GenAI
(1)Judicial officers and court users shall note that—
(a)GenAI results can include hallucinations and may be inaccurate;
(b)outputs depend on the quality and neutrality of data and may be biased, incomplete, or in breach of copyright; and
(c)public GenAI systems may lack confidentiality safeguards.
(2)Court users shall not input privileged or sensitive information into unsecured AI platforms as Chat Bots prompts, requests or interactions within the program may be automatically added to the LLM database, and used to respond to queries from other users which would make confidential information potentially available to others unless it is disabled.
(3)Sensitive material and information to which professional privilege may attach may not be inputted by court users in a public chatbot.
(4)Court users are encouraged to use enterprise-grade platforms offering secure data environments.
(5)The Judiciary may publish a list of recognised or approved AI tools.
9.Use with leave
(1)Leave may be obtained by the deponent of an affidavit to annex a document or exhibit generated by GenAI for the purposes of the proceedings.
(2)Applications shall state—
(a)the GenAI proposed;
(b)whether it is open-or closed-source and the version used;
(c)any confidentiality settings;
(d)the benefit of the AI-generated content; and
(e)any documents inputted into the GenAI.
10.Written submissions and skeleton arguments
(1)Court users are responsible for the accuracy of their written submissions and skeleton arguments, prepared with the use of GenAI therefore information shall be cross-checked against reliable databases to ensure it is accurate and trustworthy.
(2)Where Gen AI has been used in the preparation of written submissions or skeleton arguments, the author shall indicate in the body of the submission or skeleton, that GenAI was used, and shall verify that all citations, legal and academic authority and case law and legislative references—
(a)exist;
(b)are accurate; and
(c)are relevant to the proceedings.
(3)An optional cover sheet or certification tick-box may be introduced to facilitate streamlined disclosures.
11.Expert reports
(1)Gen AI shall not be used to draft or prepare the content of an expert report (or any part of an expert report) without prior leave of the Court.
(2)Applications for leave shall state—
(a)the Gen AI proposed to be used;
(b)whether it is a closed-source or open-source program or contains privacy and confidentiality settings;
(c)the benefit to be derived from the proposed use of Gen AI in the preparation of the expert report; and
(d)the documents which it is proposed to submit to the Gen AI program for the purposes of generating any aspect of the expert report.
(3)An expert witness who obtains prior leave to use Gen AI in preparing an expert report for the Court, shall—
(a)disclose in the report what part(s) of it was prepared using Gen AI;
(b)indicate the Gen AI program that was used; and
(c)disclose if the use of Gen AI is regulated or addressed by any relevant code of practice or principles that bind or apply to the expert, identify that fact and annex to the report a copy of the relevant code(s) or principle(s).
(4)Parties and attorneys who instruct experts shall bring the requirements of this Practice Direction to the attention of the expert.
12.SanctionsWhere an attorney uses GenAI to produce a document for use in judicial proceedings fails to acknowledge the use of GenAI in his work, or fails to verify the sources of law cited in his work, the Court may—
(a)strike out submissions;
(b)refuse to accept improperly verified or undisclosed documents; and
(c)impose costs for non-compliance with this Practice Direction.
13.Acknowledgment of use of GenAI Certificate of Use and disclosure list
(1)A judicial Officer, attorney or unrepresented litigant who uses GenAI to produce a judgment or ruling, or a document either in whole or in part for judicial proceedings shall acknowledge same by including a Certificate of Use in the form provided in Appendix B.
(2)An optional filing cover page or integrated check-box disclosure may be provided on filing forms or coversheets.

Appendix A

Use classification table permission

CategoryExample useRequired
Drafting SummariesCase summaries, outlinesPermitted with issue
Procedural DocumentsDisclosure Indexes, chronologies, hearing noticesPermitted
Legal ResearchCase law searches, statutory referencesPermitted with Verification
Annexures to Affidavits/Witness StatementsProducing documentsLeave Required
Expert ReportsDrafting technical opinionLeave Required
Skeleton ArgumentsAssisting with structure or referencesPermitted with Disclosure
Predictive AnalysisPredicting case outcomesUse with Caution

Appendix B

I acknowledge that this judgment/ruling, written submission, case summary or other document (or parts thereof) was prepared with the assistance of GenAI: [Tool, Version], All legal authorities have been verified.

History of this document

04 August 2025 this version
Commenced
14 July 2025
Assented to
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