Portuguese Judge Under Discipline for Using ChatGPT to Draft Court Ruling with Fabricated References
A Portuguese appellate court judge is under disciplinary investigation after allegations that ChatGPT was used to draft part of a ruling in a case involving a former member of parliament and a charity, with the text containing non-existent legal citations and language errors. The judge denies the allegations, and the investigation is ongoing with no finding yet reached.
What happened
A judge at Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa allegedly used ChatGPT to draft part of a court ruling in a case involving former member of parliament Helena Lopes da Costa and Santa Casa da Misericórdia.
Defence lawyers detected unusual expressions, Portuguese language errors, and legal references that did not correspond to applicable legislation, including a citation to 'article 22 of Law 34/87 of 16 July' to support a finding of abuse of power, which does not exist in the cited law.
The judge denied using any artificial intelligence tool and claimed to have written the ruling himself. The Conselho Superior da Magistratura opened a disciplinary process to determine responsibility.
Reported impact
The inconsistencies raised serious doubts about the integrity and validity of the court decision.
Index analysis
Twelve defence lawyers filed a complaint with the Conselho Superior da Magistratura demanding an investigation into the alleged use of AI. The Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa initially dismissed the allegations as 'completely unfounded', then corrected the ruling but without altering the decision, after which the defence lawyers stated their suspicions had strengthened rather than been resolved.
Governance controls
The Conselho Superior da Magistratura confirmed that its plenary received the report of preliminary investigation and decided to open a disciplinary process, which is conducted confidentially.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
This record was researched and written by the Index from original reporting. Its sources are still being verified by an editor, and they are listed here once that check is complete. Until then the record carries no reviewer.