Standing orders · Canada, Ontario · Superior Court of Justice
Ontario Superior Court of Justice
Three consolidated provincial practice directions, civil, family and criminal, each carrying a section on the use of artificial intelligence for court proceedings
Page verified 5 August 2026 against the court’s own published practice directions. One widely reported claim about this court is corrected below.
The first non-US court on this record, and the broadest single instrument on it. This is not one judge’s standing order. It is a superior court of general jurisdiction for a province of sixteen million people, carrying the same AI duty across civil, family and criminal work, in directions that bind every filer.
Where the rule sits
- CivilConsolidated Civil Provincial Practice Direction, Part J(12), “The Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Court Proceedings”, paragraphs 122 to 128. Direction last effective 17 March 2026.
- FamilyConsolidated Provincial Practice Direction for Family Proceedings, Part N, section 12, paragraphs 230 to 232. Direction last updated 17 March 2026.
- CriminalConsolidated Provincial Practice Direction for Criminal Proceedings, Part IX, General Provisions, section I.
The court announced the set publicly in February 2026 as new practice directions on the responsible use of artificial intelligence in court proceedings.
What it requires
“Maintaining the integrity of the justice system is the shared responsibility of all justice sector participants.”
The operative duty is the same in each direction. It is the responsibility of all counsel and litigants to guarantee accuracy when preparing materials for use in court proceedings, and particularly when using AI. The risk the court names is hallucination: fictitious authorities, misrepresented precedent, fabricated quotations.
- VerifyAll AI-generated references must be checked against trusted and authoritative sources before filing.
- HyperlinkCase citations in factums, compendiums and books of authorities must be hyperlinked to freely available sites such as CanLII. This is the practical enforcement mechanism: a fabricated case cannot be linked.
- CertifyCivil filers must comply with Rules of Civil Procedure subrules 06.1(2) to (2.2) on factum citations and authenticity certification, and ensure expert reports verify authority authenticity under subrules 03(2.1) to (2.1.1). Criminal filers must comply with Criminal Proceedings Rules 32 and 33.
- Professional conductCounsel must comply with the Law Society of Ontario’s Rules of Professional Conduct, with the LSO Futures Committee white paper on generative AI (April 2024) named as guidance.
What the court reserves
The consequences named are wider than a costs order: public reprimand, cost orders, adjourning a hearing or dismissing the matter, referral to the Law Society of Ontario, and the initiation of contempt proceedings. The criminal direction closes with a line that leaves no room for the usual mitigation:
“The court will not tolerate inadvertence in this regard.”
The family direction goes further than the other two, framing parts of its rule as prohibitions rather than verification duties, including on the use of AI to create evidence or prepare witness material. Read the family direction directly if you practise in it; it is not a copy of the civil one.
A correction to what is being reported
A “bright line rule for judges and justices of the peace”, that generative AI is not to be used where a task determines or shapes the legal outcome, the assessment of credibility, or contested facts, is being widely attributed to these practice directions. It is not in them. We read the criminal direction in full and it contains no rule on judicial use of AI.
The line comes from Justice Jill Presser of this court, speaking about judicial AI use, as reported by Law Times. It is a judge’s articulation of the principle, not an instrument. The governing published instrument on judicial use in Canada is the Canadian Judicial Council’s Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Canadian Courts (September 2024), which states that AI cannot supplant judges’ exclusive responsibility for decision-making.
We say this because the distinction matters to anyone citing it. A practice direction binds; a speech does not.
What to do about it
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Sources
- Consolidated Civil Provincial Practice Direction, Part J(12)
- Consolidated Provincial Practice Direction for Family Proceedings, Part N s.12
- Consolidated Provincial Practice Direction for Criminal Proceedings, Part IX s.I
- Court announcement, February 2026
- Canadian Judicial Council, Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Canadian Courts (Sept 2024)
- The “bright line” quotation is reported speech, attributed to Presser J by Law Times, and is not in any practice direction.
Related
- Every verified AI standing order
- Zhang v. Chen, the leading Canadian sanctions decision
- Connecticut Practice Book section 4-9, the American statewide equivalent
Checked 5 August 2026 against the court’s own published directions. Information, not legal advice, and not advice on the law of Ontario.
Information, not legal advice. Every entry is verified against the issuing body’s own document; where a source is reporting rather than the document, we say so.