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Belize Practice Direction No. 18 of 2025 bans AI-generated witness evidence and binds judges, court personnel and attorneys alike
Most court AI rules point at the practitioner filing the brief. This one points at the bench and the registry too, and it treats a witness statement as a document no model may touch.
Bottom line: In force. Practice Direction No. 18 of 2025 was made by the Rules Committee under section 101 of the Senior Courts Act, Act No. 27 of 2022, and took effect on 12 August 2025. It is a practice direction of the Senior Courts of Belize, and it states its own sanctions clause.
Who this affects: Attorneys practising before the Senior Courts of Belize, judges and judicial officers, court personnel, parties, witnesses and deponents, self-represented persons, and expert or factual witnesses whose statements are drafted with software assistance.
Issue date: Made by the Rules Committee on 11 August 2025; comes into effect 12 August 2025 by clause 7. No compliance deadline or transition period appears on the face of the document. It is subject to periodic review under clause 6.
What changed: Belize put a rule in place covering four things a disclosure-only rule does not: the prohibition on AI in affidavits and witness statements, a permission procedure with five mandatory disclosures for AI-prepared exhibits, an explicit chapter on judicial decision-making, and a stated sanctions clause.
Analysis: The scope clause reaches judges and court personnel by name. That makes the instrument an internal governance document for the court as well as a rule for the bar, which is a different thing from a practice direction that only tells filers what to declare.
Primary sources: Practice Direction No. 18 of 2025 (PDF)
- Instrument (EN)
- Practice Direction No. 18 of 2025, Ethical Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Court Proceedings
- Authority
- Rules Committee of the Senior Courts of Belize, chaired by the Chief Justice
- Jurisdiction
- Belize, Senior Courts
- Enabling power
- Section 101 of the Senior Courts Act, Act No. 27 of 2022
- Status
- In effect since 12 August 2025; subject to periodic review under clause 6
- Bindingness
- A practice direction of the court, with a non-compliance and sanctions clause at clause 5; it does not amend primary legislation
- Issue date / next deadline
- Made 11 August 2025, effective 12 August 2025; no deadline stated
- Signatories
- Chief Justice Louise Esther Blenman, Justice of Appeal Minnet Hafiz Bertram, Justice Antoinette Moore, Justice Martha Alexander, and Bar Association President William Lindo
- Primary source
- https://www.belizejudiciary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Practice-Direction-No.-18-of-2025-Ethical-Use-of-Generative-Artificial-Intelligence-in-Court-Proceedings.pdf
Why we are covering a 2025 instrument now
This is not news. Practice Direction No. 18 of 2025 has been in effect since August 2025, and we are writing about it in August 2026 for one reason: it is genuinely uncovered. The trade press that tracks court AI rules has largely skipped it, and the summaries that do exist describe it as a disclosure rule, which sells it short.
There is also a date trap worth naming, because it is the kind of thing that quietly poisons a citation. The PDF sits at a URL under a /2025/11/ upload folder, and a secondary press item we were handed carried 2025-08-12. An upload path is a content management system artifact and is not a date of any legal significance. We resolved the question on the face of the document instead.
Clause 7 reads that the Practice Direction shall come into effect on the 12th day of August 2025. The execution line above the signatures reads that it was made by the Rules Committee on the 11th day of August 2025. So there are two real dates, one day apart, and the press figure happens to match the effective date. We use 12 August 2025 as the operative date and 11 August 2025 as the date of making. The November folder is noise.
Who it binds, in its own words
Clause 2(4) is the part that separates this instrument from a practitioner-conduct rule. It states that the Practice Direction applies to all legal professionals, judges, court personnel, attorneys, parties, witnesses, self-represented persons, and other court users. Eight categories, and the second and third are the court itself.
Clause 2(3) sets the subject-matter reach: it applies to all AI-assisted tools used in case research, document drafting, evidence analysis, court filings, and other legal processes within the jurisdiction. Evidence analysis is listed alongside drafting, which matters once you read clause 3.
Judges get their own chapter. Clause 4(2) states that AI shall not replace human judgment in judicial decision-making, while allowing it as a tool for case management, legal research, and administrative efficiency. Clause 4(3) requires judges to critically assess any AI-generated insights and ensure that legal reasoning remains independent and unbiased. A rule that constrains the bench is a governance instrument, not just a filing standard, and that is our characterisation rather than the document's.
The witness-evidence prohibition
Clause 3(1) is the strongest clause in the document. The use of AI is prohibited in the generation of the content of affidavits, witness statements, or any other material intended to reflect the evidence or opinion of a deponent or witness, or other material tendered into evidence or used in cross-examination. The sentence that follows states that such documents shall solely reflect a person's knowledge and shall not include artificial intelligence-generated content.
Clause 3(2) closes the obvious workaround. It prohibits AI use for the purpose of altering, embellishing, strengthening, diluting, or otherwise rephrasing the evidence of a witness or deponent. Read together with 3(1), the ban covers both writing the evidence and cleaning it up afterwards, and it extends to material used in cross-examination.
Expert witnesses should read that clause slowly. An expert opinion is material intended to reflect the opinion of a witness. On the text, running a draft opinion through a model to tighten the prose is the rephrasing that 3(2) prohibits, not a formatting step.
There is a narrow exit, and it is procedural. Clause 3(3) allows permission to be sought in exceptional circumstances for AI use in preparing any annexure or exhibit to an affidavit or witness statement. The application to the Court must specify a detailed description of the intended use, the programme or system proposed including the relevant version, whether it is closed-source or open-source, whether it contains privacy or confidentiality features, and the anticipated advantages of employing it. That is a five-part disclosure, and note it covers the annexure or exhibit, not the statement itself.
Clause 3(4) confirms the negative space: the Court does not prohibit AI tools for the preparation of other court documents, provided users comply with the Practice Direction and any relevant legislation, rules, and ethical obligations.
Disclosure, verification and responsibility
The disclosure duty sits under the heading Transparency and Explainability, at clause 3(5): "Court users shall disclose when AI-generated content is used in court submissions, including legal arguments, precedents, and reports." The modal is shall. The trigger is use of AI-generated content in a court submission, and the clause names three content types by way of inclusion rather than limitation.
What the clause does not do is prescribe a form. It does not say where the disclosure goes, what it must contain, whether the tool must be named, or whether a certificate is required. Compare that with the exhibit application at clause 3(3), which lists five specific items. A practitioner who wants to be safe has an obvious template sitting one clause above.
Clause 3(6) is the research duty: any reliance on AI-generated legal research shall be verified against authoritative legal sources to ensure accuracy. Clause 3(9) adds that AI tools shall not be used as a sole source of legal reasoning or factual analysis, and 3(10) requires users to independently verify AI-generated outputs to prevent errors, misinformation, or misapplication of legal principles.
Responsibility is allocated in clause 3(7): court users who utilise AI tools assume full responsibility for the accuracy, relevance, and appropriateness of the outputs incorporated into court documents, annexures, and exhibits. Clause 3(16) puts the same point on attorneys specifically, requiring professional judgment in all AI-assisted legal work and accountability for submissions.
Confidentiality, bias, and what happens if you get it wrong
Three confidentiality clauses. Clause 3(11) requires AI tools processing legal documents to comply with data protection laws and ensure client confidentiality. Clause 3(12) states that sensitive or privileged information shall not be input into AI systems that lack adequate safeguards against unauthorised access. Clause 3(13) is softer and says the use of secure platforms adhering to established ethical standards and legal requirements is recommended.
The bias clauses are short. Clause 3(14) requires court users to be aware of and mitigate the risk of AI bias that may unfairly influence legal reasoning or decision-making, and 3(15) states that AI-assisted tools shall not be used to reinforce or perpetuate discriminatory practices.
Clause 5 is headed Non-Compliance and Sanctions. Failure to adhere may result in court sanctions, including but not limited to rejection of AI-generated submissions that lack proper verification, ethical review of practitioners who improperly use AI in legal proceedings, or other disciplinary measures as deemed appropriate by the Court. Note the modal there is may, not shall, and note that the list is expressly non-exhaustive. No fine, referral threshold, or costs consequence is specified, and we do not assert one.
Belize now sits in a group. Six Caribbean courts have issued AI practice directions or equivalent guidance: the Caribbean Court of Justice, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, The Bahamas, Belize, and Trinidad and Tobago. We name the pattern because it is real, but we did not open the other five for this piece and make no claim about how their texts compare.
What we did not verify
What we opened: the full six-page PDF of Practice Direction No. 18 of 2025 hosted on belizejudiciary.org, parsed end to end. Every clause number, quotation and modal verb in this piece was character-matched against that extraction, including the clause 3(5) disclosure sentence quoted verbatim above and the clause 7 effective-date line.
What we did not open: section 101 of the Senior Courts Act, Act No. 27 of 2022, which is cited on the face of the document as the enabling power and which we take at the document's word. We did not open the practice directions of the Caribbean Court of Justice, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, The Bahamas or Trinidad and Tobago. We did not check whether any amendment, replacement or superseding direction has been issued since August 2025, and clause 6 expressly contemplates further guidance. We did not find or read any Belize judgment applying this Practice Direction, so we cannot say how it has been enforced in practice, or whether it has been.
What we refuse to claim: that any specific sanction follows a breach, since clause 5 says may and gives a non-exhaustive list with no fine, costs order or referral threshold on its face. That the disclosure duty has a prescribed form, wording or placement, since the text supplies none. That the instrument binds any court outside Belize or any tribunal outside the Senior Courts. That the November upload folder in the PDF path signifies a republication, correction or amendment; we could not determine why the file sits there and we treat it as carrying no legal meaning.
If you practise before the Senior Courts of Belize, the clause to brief your team on is not the disclosure duty, it is clause 3(1) and 3(2). A witness statement or affidavit may not contain AI-generated content, and the ban extends to using a model to rephrase, strengthen or dilute a witness account after the fact. Disclosure under clause 3(5) uses shall but prescribes no form, so the safe practice is to borrow the five-item structure the document already sets out for exhibit applications. And if you sit on the bench or work in the registry, clause 2(4) names you.
Source File
Open the Practice Direction PDF on belizejudiciary.org and confirm three things on its face: clause 2(4) lists judges and court personnel among those bound; clause 3(1) prohibits AI in the generation of affidavit and witness statement content; and clause 7 sets the effective date as 12 August 2025, with the execution line dated 11 August 2025. Ignore the /2025/11/ segment of the URL.
Court users shall disclose when AI-generated content is used in court submissions, including legal arguments, precedents, and reports. Practice Direction No. 18 of 2025, clause 3(5), Rules Committee of the Senior Courts of Belize, made 11 August 2025
FAQ
Does the Practice Direction really bind judges, or only attorneys?
Clause 2(4) lists judges and court personnel expressly, alongside legal professionals, attorneys, parties, witnesses, self-represented persons and other court users. Clause 4 then gives judicial decision-making its own chapter, stating that AI shall not replace human judgment in judicial decision-making and requiring judges to critically assess any AI-generated insights.
Can an expert witness use a model to polish a draft opinion?
On the text, no. Clause 3(1) prohibits AI in the generation of the content of any material intended to reflect the evidence or opinion of a deponent or witness, and clause 3(2) separately prohibits AI use for altering, embellishing, strengthening, diluting or otherwise rephrasing that evidence. The only stated exit is clause 3(3), which covers permission to use AI on an annexure or exhibit, not on the statement itself.
What date should I cite for this instrument?
Cite 12 August 2025 as the effective date, from clause 7, and 11 August 2025 as the date the Rules Committee made it, from the execution line. The PDF is stored under a /2025/11/ upload folder, which is a file-hosting artifact and not a date. We resolved both dates from the face of the document.
What sanction applies if a filer ignores the disclosure duty?
Clause 5 states that failure to adhere may result in court sanctions, including but not limited to rejection of AI-generated submissions that lack proper verification, ethical review of practitioners, or other disciplinary measures as deemed appropriate by the Court. The modal is may and the list is expressly non-exhaustive. No fine or referral threshold appears in the text, and we do not assert one.
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