Caribbean Court of Justice: Practice Direction No. 1 of 2025, generative AI in court proceedings

Status

• 14 Feb 2025Issued by the President of the Caribbean Court of Justice under Part 18.1 of the CCJ (Appellate Jurisdiction) Rules 2024 and Part 32.1 of the CCJ (Original Jurisdiction) Rules 2024.
• In effectFrom the date of issue. The direction says periodic revisions are expected “given the dynamism of the subject matter”.
• ReachAll proceedings before the CCJ, the final appellate court for Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, St Lucia and other member states, and the original-jurisdiction court for the CARICOM treaty.

Who and what it covers

• PeopleAttorneys, parties, witnesses, self-represented persons and other court users.
• GenAIDefined as AI that produces new content, text, images, video or audio, in response to prompts, from closed-source and open-source large language models to bespoke legal tools.
• Court documentsText, images, sounds, videos, data and any other material filed in or submitted to the Court, such as written submissions and reports. The definition excludes the content of affidavits, witness statements and evidential material.

What it requires

• No AI evidencePart II.1: GenAI is prohibited in the generation of the content of affidavits, witness statements, any material intended to reflect the evidence or opinion of a deponent or witness, material tendered into evidence or used in cross-examination. Such documents “must reflect solely a person’s knowledge”.
• No reshapingPart II.2: GenAI is prohibited “for the purpose of altering, embellishing, strengthening, diluting or otherwise rephrasing the evidence of a witness or deponent”. Ireland’s HC 142 uses almost the same formula, seventeen months later.
• PermissionPart II.3: in exceptional circumstances permission may be sought to use GenAI for an annexure or exhibit. The application must specify the intended use, the programme including the relevant version, whether it is closed-source or open-source, whether it has privacy or confidentiality features, and the anticipated advantages.
• Tools allowedPart II.4: the Court does not prohibit GenAI for preparing court documents, provided users comply with the direction, legislation, rules and ethical obligations.
• ResponsibilityPart II.5: users “assume full responsibility for the accuracy, relevance, and appropriateness of the outputs” incorporated into court documents, annexures and exhibits.
• AttorneysPart II.6 and III.1: submissions, reports, evidence and statements must be independently verified; citations or references generated by GenAI “must be independently verified using reliable sources”.
• Self-representedPart III.2: may use GenAI to draft submissions or learn the law, and remain responsible for verifying the outputs.
• ConfidentialityPart IV.1: users must not input sensitive, confidential or privileged information into open-source GenAI tools. Secure platforms are recommended for private material.
• Prove the checkPart IV.2, in full: “Outputs generated by GenAI tools must be checked against authoritative legal texts, case law, or statutes. Court users may be required to demonstrate how such verifications were conducted.”
• DisclosePart IV.3: the Court may require disclosure of whether GenAI was used in any document or evidence, and users “should be prepared to identify specific portions of their submissions influenced by GenAI and explain the steps taken to ensure accuracy”.

What non-compliance costs

• CostsCosts orders against the offending party.
• The filing“Rejection or diminished evidentiary weight of improperly prepared documents or submissions.”

Why it is on this list

Most instruments on this record require verification. This one reserves the power to demand proof of the verification process itself. Part IV.2 does not ask whether the check happened; it says court users may be required to demonstrate how it was conducted, and Part IV.3 asks them to identify the AI-influenced passages and explain the steps taken. A declaration that the work was checked does not answer either question. A record of what was checked, against what, and by whom, does.

It is also early. A supranational final appellate court wrote this on 14 February 2025, before New South Wales, before Qatar, before Ireland. The prohibition on reshaping a witness’s evidence, “altering, embellishing, strengthening, diluting or otherwise rephrasing”, is the formula Ireland’s HC 142 adopted in July 2026.

Jamaica’s Supreme Court followed in September 2025 with a mandatory declaration naming the tool and its version. Between them the two directions give the Caribbean the duty, the declaration, and the reserved right to see the proof. What none of them says is how anyone would show it on the day.

Sources

• Caribbean Court of Justice, Practice Direction No. 1 of 2025, the Court’s own PDF, three pages
• Caribbean Court of Justice, announcement of the direction

Related

• The law library · AI rules by country · The Caribbean
• Jamaica, Practice Direction No. 1 of 2025, the mandatory declaration with tool and version
• Ireland, Practice Direction HC 142, the same witness-evidence formula, July 2026
• Verification is becoming a duty. Evidence of verification is the missing layer.
• The sanctions record

Checked against the source 7 September 2026: the Court’s own PDF on ccj.org, SHA-256 6adc5b60…787053, read in full. Information, not legal advice.