Ruling overturned because magistrate used Google

The ruling by a magistrate who granted bail to alleged cybercrime kingpin James Junior Aliyu – and used Google for legal knowledge on some aspects of the case – has been overturned on appeal by the National Prosecuting Authority. ‘The learned magistrate, unfortunately, acted as a witness in the case by searching, by his own admission during his judgment, on Google for evidence of an extradition treaty between the USA and Nigeria,’ said Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) Acting Judge Peet Johnson. A Pretoria News report notes that he added that it was 'irregular for a court to search for evidence on Google, which had not been proved to be a reliable source of information, to contradict the arguments of one party or the other'. He ruled that it was also irregular for the magistrate to take cognisance of what he had uncovered on Google, noting it did not bode well for the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. Johnson overturned the bail decision, which means Aliyu will remain behind bars. The prosecution told the court it had received extradition documents from the US, which it was giving attention to. Aliyu – a Nigerian citizen – had wanted bail, pending his extradition inquiry to the US. He is due to stand trial there on various charges, among them ‘wire fraud’ and money laundering. Aliyu had told the magistrate that he had a valid defence and would plead not guilty, claiming he had been ‘framed’. Johnson said it was clear that Aliyu placed all the blame on others and attempted to exonerate himself. ‘The learned magistrate ignored these facts and merely concluded that the respondent (Aliyu) denied the offences and has a valid defence.’

Judgment

Full Pretoria News report

In a separate matter, lawyers acting for a woman who claimed she was defamed by a body corporate in Parkwood, Johannesburg, were left red-faced when it emerged they tried to use non-existent judgments generated by ChatGPT to bolster her case. ‘The names and citations are fictitious, the facts are fictitious, and the decisions are fictitious,’ said a judgment of the Johannesburg Regional Court last week. It also slapped the woman with a punitive costs order. Magistrate Arvin Chaitram said the incident was a ‘timely reminder’ 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 Sunday Times reports that the fictitious judgments meant a two-month delay, after Chaitram postponed the case for the lawyers to track down the judgments. The case first came before the magistrate in March, when Claire Avidon – counsel for the trustees of the body corporate – argued that a body corporate cannot be sued for defamation. This would have put an end to the case. However, Jurie Hayes, counsel for Michelle Parker, argued that there were earlier judgments that answered this question. Chaitram said he decided to grant a postponement to late May. ‘As the question appeared to be a novel one that could be dispositive of the entire action, the court requested that both parties make a concerted effort to source the suggested authorities.’ What followed was two months in which two sets of lawyers tried to track down fictitious judgments that Parker’s lawyers, using artificial intelligence (AI) had earlier found references to – but did not actually exist.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Chantal Rodrigues, said that because it was an unprecedented and complex case, ‘finding an unreported case and precedents is not a simple and straightforward task’. ‘All possible avenues for information and potential leads had to be investigated and exhausted … via old- or new-fashioned means.’ The Sunday Times notes that her firm explored ‘one the most advanced AI tools to date’ and then ‘followed up on the findings gathered’. This meant ‘extensive discussions with the various High Courts throughout our country, discussions with court registrars in multiple provinces and conversing with law librarians at the Legal Practice Council library’, she said. When the team sought help from the Johannesburg Bar’s library, the librarians said they could not track down the judgments either and they suspected that the cases were generated by ChatGPT. In court last Monday ‘the plaintiff’s counsel explained that his attorney had sourced the cases through the medium of ChatGPT’, said the judgment. The judgment said Parker’s attorneys had accepted the AI chatbot’s result ‘without satisfying themselves as to its accuracy’.

Full Sunday Times report