🚨 A Tanzanian court has suspended an advocate for six months for citing cases that did not exist, invented, it suspected, by AI.
The case is Registered Trustees of AGGCI v Registrar of Societies & 5 others, decided on 3 September 2026, reportedly the first Tanzanian decision to confront AI hallucination in legal practice. Arguing an application for extension of time, counsel cited two purported Court of Appeal decisions, complete with supporting quotations. When the court tried to locate them, one did not exist and the other pointed to an entirely different case. Suspecting fictitious, AI-generated ghost cases, the court asked counsel to produce them. He could not, admitted he had been unable to trace them despite extensive effort, and accepted responsibility, calling it an unfortunate mistake.
The court's findings, per Principal Judge Siyani, are worth stating in full, because they are the law of professional responsibility everywhere in the region. Advocates owe an absolute duty of candour to the court. Failing to verify legal authorities is professional negligence. A lack of bad faith does not excuse citing false authorities. And, most pointedly: the use of AI does not diminish an advocate's professional responsibility. The court adopted a zero-tolerance approach, drawing on recent decisions from England, Australia and India, and ordered the advocate suspended for six months, with a public apology published in both English and Swahili.
Kenyan courts have already struck out pleadings after discovering AI-fabricated citations, a Supreme Court judge has warned advocates against using AI for filings until formal rules are in place, and the Judiciary has circulated a Draft AI Policy and Practice Directions built on a simple principle: the lawyer, not the algorithm, is responsible for what reaches a judge.
A Kenyan advocate does not need to wait for those directions to be finalized. The very duties the Tanzanian court enforced, candour to the court and competence to the client, already bind every Kenyan advocate today under existing professional-conduct rules. An advocate who files submissions citing authorities that do not exist has breached those duties, whether the fiction came from carelessness or from an unchecked machine, and faces the same exposure to sanction.
AI is a tool, never a substitute for a lawyer's judgment, and you are answerable for every case you cite. Verify everything, or risk your practice.
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Life so private, no one knows @EliudKipchoge was once my teammate 😂
It’s been 10 years since we shared the stage at the Rio 2016 Olympics, carrying the hopes of a nation in the same colours.
A decade later, we meet again in completely different chapters of our lives. This time not on the Olympic stage, but over a plate of butter orange and herb poached carrots with a lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf-infused mursik dressing cutting through their richness, served alongside creamy managu, grilled rump steak and ugali.
Eliud took running beyond its limits and showed the world that NO HUMAN IS LIMITED. Now his dream goes beyond records, to make this world a running world, bringing people and communities together through running.
My dream is to do the same with food, tell people’s stories through what we eat, where tradition meets free will and the only limit is what we’re willing to imagine.
NO HUMAN IS LIMITED!
NO INGREDIENT IS LIMITED!
“We enter a zoo in Yola yesterday and paid 500 Naira per person to view the animals, only to be shocked by these statues” 🗣️
—Family left stunned after visiting a zoo in Yola only to see animal statues instead of live animals.
Ngenia Boys performing Ngai Murathimi by Ruth Wamuyu, in the African Gospel Music category. Now THIS is what we call a top tier performance. Angali how the white gloves on the boys elevate the whole presentation everything is so clean and well coordinated.
They say nobody gets into Yale. But God has not forgotten the cattle herders. Humbled to become the first Kenyan lawyer in approximately 33 years to join Yale’s LL.M. class of just 25 lawyers worldwide. Excited for this chapter.
Even I who doesn't carry my ID anywhere because I also don't carry a wallet know that when travelling, I'll have to have my ID with me. Vitu zingine kusema ukweli ni ku force tu issues. Yes, there's no law mandating someone to carry an ID, but that's an active security zone man.
#hotoffthebench
SCORK clarifies the position:
ELRC can handle pre-employment disputes but they must fall under categories in Section 12 of the Act. In cases such as the Magare one where he was neither an applicant for the position, such disputes can only be handled by High Court