Artificial Intelligence (AI): Judicial Guidance

Courts and Tribunals Judiciary of England and Wales

last revised 2025-10-31last verified 2026-09-043 versionscountry page →

GuidanceIn forceConfidentialityVerification dutyCompetence

map categories:Judges' use of AI AI barred from deciding cases Client data in AI tools Duty to verify AI output Courts' own AI deployment Self-represented litigants

Guidance from the senior judiciary of England and Wales for judges, magistrates and tribunal members on using AI. Judges remain personally responsible for their work, must not enter confidential information into public tools, and may ask parties and lawyers about their use of AI. The current version is dated 31 October 2025.

Applies to: judges, court-staff
Effective: 12 Dec 2023
Current version: October 2025 (v3) · 31 Oct 2025
Last verified: 04 Sept 2026
Official text: www.judiciary.uk/guidance-and-resources/artificial-intelligence-ai-jud…

What the document requires

Judicial office holders are personally responsible for material produced in their name, whether or not AI assisted.
Confidential or private information must not be entered into public AI chatbots.
Judges should be alert to fabricated citations and may ask parties and representatives whether AI was used.
AI may be used for summarising and administrative tasks but not for legal research or analysis that cannot be independently verified.

Version history

Version	Date	What changed	Source
October 2025 (v3)current	2025-10-31	Replaces the April 2025 version; expands guidance on identifying AI-generated material from litigants and lawyers and on judges' personal responsibility for anything produced with AI assistance.	official
April 2025 (v2)	2025-04-14	Extended to all judicial office holders, added a glossary, and addressed hallucinated case law and deepfake evidence.	official
December 2023 (v1)	2023-12-12	First version recorded.	official

Related court incidents on the record

MS (Professional conduct, AI generated documents) Bangladesh, [2025] UKUT 305 (IAC)2025-08-12 Regulatory referral
The Father v The Mother & Ors, [2025] EWHC 2135 (Fam)2025-07-30 Dismissal
Ayinde v London Borough of Haringey; Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank2025-06-06 Regulatory referral
Harber v Commissioners for HMRC, [2023] UKFTT 1007 (TC)2023-12-04 Dismissal

Read our analysis: UK judicial AI guidance: the version history, December 2023 to October 2025 →

Sources

Cite this record

SafeLegalAI Legal AI Regulation Tracker, "Artificial Intelligence (AI): Judicial Guidance" (Courts and Tribunals Judiciary of England and Wales, October 2025 (v3), 2025-10-31), safelegalai.com/regulation/uk/uk-judiciary-ai-guidance (accessed 2026-09-04). Data: CC BY 4.0.