Dodoma – The High Court has suspended Advocate Johnson Johannes Kachenje from practice for six months after finding that he misled the court by citing two Court of Appeal decisions that did not exist in an application involving the Assemblies of God Gospel Church International, or AGGCI.
The ruling, delivered by Principal Judge Mustafa Siyani on September 3, also requires Kachenje to publish a signed apology in English and Kiswahili in a widely circulated daily newspaper.
The ruling found Kachenje guilty of professional misconduct under the Advocates Act and professional-conduct regulations after he cited the purported cases in submissions seeking more time to apply for leave, or permission, to bring judicial review proceedings.
It held that the advocate had misrepresented fact and law, irrespective of his assertion that the error was not malicious.
“The prospect of a court being presented with non-existent cases and purported excerpts from the highest court in the land is something this Court could not ignore to avoid compromising the integrity of the judicial process and justice itself,” Principal Judge Siyani said.
Authorities not found
The issue arose in Registered Trustees of the Assemblies of God Gospel Church International v Registrar of Societies and Others, an application at the High Court’s Main Registry in Dodoma.
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The ruling says AGGCI sought an extension of time after an earlier judicial-review proceeding was struck out because it included issues for which leave had not been obtained.
At the July 8 hearing, Kachenje, appearing for AGGCI, cited and quoted what he described as the Court of Appeal decisions in Mwanza Restaurant Workers Co-operative Societies v Regional Commissioner of Mwanza, Civil Appeal No. 27 of 1999, and Sanai Murumbe and Another v Managing Director, Serengeti Safari Lodges Ltd [1986] TLR 45.
The ruling says that neither authority could be located online, in court registries or in the 1986 Tanganyika Law Reports that the lawyer had cited.
The judge found that page 45 of the 1986 law reports was instead the second page of Joseph John Makune v Republic [1986] TLR 44. He issued orders on August 4 directing Kachenje to provide copies of the two cases by August 11 or explain why disciplinary action should not follow.
Kachenje was unable to produce them, despite, the ruling says, searching further and contacting the registries in Mwanza and Musoma, where the decisions were said to have been delivered.
He acknowledged that he had obtained the citations online, accepted responsibility for what he called an “unfortunate professional mistake,” apologised and said he had not intended to mislead the court; the state lawyers who responded also asked the court to exercise leniency.
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Principal Judge Siyani accepted that Kachenje did not present the materials with malice, but held that a lack of bad faith did not remove the breach. The court said an advocate, as an officer of the court, owes a duty of candour and must exercise the skill, prudence and diligence expected of a reasonable practitioner before relying on legal authority.
“The duty to be candid and forthright to the Court is absolute and is not dependent upon the absence or presence of an intention to mislead the Court,” the judge held.
The court therefore concluded that Kachenje had at least been professionally negligent by citing non-existent cases, described in the ruling as potentially generated through artificial-intelligence hallucination, without first checking their authenticity.
The judge did not make a definitive finding that Kachenje himself had used a particular AI tool; the legal finding rested on the use of authorities that could not be verified.
It ordered the two purported authorities and the passages attributed to them removed from the record. Kachenje was suspended under section 30(2)(a) of the Advocates Act, while the apology order was made under the Advocates (Professional Conduct and Etiquette) Regulations, 2018.
The ruling says that the suspension may be extended by one month if the notice is not published and proof is filed with the High Court registrar.
A sharper response
The ruling places the sanction in a growing local pattern. Principal Judge Siyani referred to FAM v ZAM [2025] TZHC 3948, in which the High Court encountered six non-existent authorities but did not impose a disciplinary punishment on the advocate concerned.
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The judge said the earlier reminder of professional responsibility had not prevented repetition and that sanctions were now needed to protect the integrity of adjudication, the profession’s reputation and public confidence.
He said the Bar and Bench should adopt “zero tolerance” for the citation or reliance on non-existent, fabricated or unverified AI-generated cases.
The ruling does not prohibit artificial intelligence in court administration or legal work. Rather, it applies existing duties of accuracy, honesty and professional competence to material filed in court, and treats verification against genuine, authoritative sources as the practitioner’s responsibility.
That distinction reflects an approach Tanzania’s Judiciary has previously taken to technology. In a February 2, 2022 Law Day address, then Chief Justice Ibrahim Juma described AI as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and said the Judiciary was exploring a system for transcription and translation of proceedings in more than ten languages.
By 2024, the Judiciary had introduced an AI-supported transcription and translation system, which Juma said could reduce the administrative burden on judges and magistrates. The stated aim was to improve efficiency, not to replace judicial decision-making or determine the law.
Wider policy debate
Courts in other common-law systems have dealt with similar filings, though the responses have depended on the conduct and local disciplinary powers.
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In the United States, for example, a federal judge in New York imposed a US$5,000 joint sanction in 2023 after lawyers in Mata v Avianca submitted fictitious decisions produced by ChatGPT and continued to stand by them after their existence was questioned.
In England and Wales, the Divisional Court said in Ayinde v London Borough of Haringey and Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank that freely available generative AI tools were not capable of reliable legal research because they could invent cases, quotations and propositions.
The court said lawyers who use such tools, or rely on research prepared by others using them, must check the material against authoritative sources, and referred the lawyers involved to their regulators.
In India, the Supreme Court in July set aside tribunal and appellate decisions after finding that they relied on false and non-existent AI-generated precedents. While affirming the use of AI as an aid to adjudication, it called for human control at every stage and asked the Bar Council of India to develop principles and possible disciplinary consequences.
A 2025 peer-reviewed study by Stanford researchers found that three commercial AI legal research products generated hallucinated answers in between 17 and 33 per cent of tested queries, despite performing better than a general-purpose model.
The authors said the findings supported continued human verification, particularly because legal research depends on jurisdiction, dates, procedural settings and the relationship between authorities.
