Tribunal decisions

The decision

UT Neutral Citation Number: [2025] UKUT 00305 (IAC)

MS (Professional conduct; AI generated documents) Bangladesh

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)

Field House,
Breams Buildings
London, EC4A 1WR

Hearing date: 23rd July 2025
Promulgated: 12th August 2025

Before:

THE HON. MR JUSTICE DOVE
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LINDSLEY

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Between:

MS (Bangladesh)
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
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SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent
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1. AI large language models such as ChatGPT can produce misinformation including fabricated judgments complete with false citations.

2. The Divisional Court has provided guidance in the case of R (Ayinde) v London Borough of Haringey, Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank QPSC [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin) that the consequence of using AI large language models in a way which results in false authorities being cited is likely to be referral to a professional regulator, such as the BSB or SRA, as it is a lawyer’s professional responsibility to ensure that checks on the accuracy of citation of authority or quotations are carried out using reputable sources of legal information. Where there is evidence of the deliberate placing of false material before the Court police investigation or contempt proceedings may also be appropriate.

3. Taking unprofessional short-cuts which will very likely mislead the Tribunal is never excusable.

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HAMID J U D G M E N T

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Judge Lindsley:

Introduction

1. The Upper Tribunal has an inherent jurisdiction to govern its own procedure and part of that jurisdiction mandates that we ensure that the lawyers interacting with the Upper Tribunal conduct themselves according to proper professional standards. The Upper Tribunal cannot afford to have its limited resources absorbed by representatives who place false information before the Tribunal. Further, time spent on applications containing false legal information also risks a loss of public confidence in the processes of the Upper Tribunal. We are also aware that the immigration client group can be particularly vulnerable. We emphasise that the primary duty of solicitors and barristers is to the Court and Upper Tribunal, and to the cause of truth and justice.

2. We guide ourselves with reference to the judgment in R (Hamid) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3070 (Admin), and the subsequent judgments of R (Sathivel) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 913 (Admin) and R (DVP) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWHC 606 (Admin); and in this instance more specifically to the judgement in R (Ayinde) v London Borough of Haringey, Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank QPSC [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin).

3. The purpose of the present hearing is to decide whether it is appropriate to refer Mr Muhammad Mujeebur Rahman, of Counsel, to the Bar Standards Board (BSB) for investigation. What is said in this Hamid decision is not binding on the BSB but may assist them to explore this matter further and consider what, if any action, is appropriate.

The Present Proceedings

4. These proceedings have come about as a result of a false citation placed by Mr Rahman in the grounds of appeal in the appellant’s case which he drafted on 14th March 2025. In the grounds it was said as follows at paragraph 14: “The Tribunal or decision maker placed undue weight on delay in isolation, contrary to Y (China) [2010] EWCA Civ 116, which requires consideration of personal circumstances, mental health, and overall context.” The case Y (China) does not exist. However permission was granted to appeal on limited grounds by the First-tier Tribunal including on the ground that undue weight had been placed on delay.

5. The matter therefore proceeded to the Upper Tribunal, and Mr Rahman of Lexminders’ Chambers Limited was recorded as the representative, with all correspondence being sent to lexminderschambers@gmail.com from that point onwards. Mr Rahman claims that this is an error by the Upper Tribunal and that whilst the email is operational that he was in fact instructed as counsel by Lextel Solicitors. Mr Rahman maintained that evidence of Lextel Solicitors being on the record had been sent to the Upper Tribunal and we gave him 7 days to provide this evidence. The fact is however that Lextel Solicitors were not on the record with the Upper Tribunal, and the additional material Mr Rahman provided at the most showed that the appellant had instructed these solicitors on 9th June 2025 but that they had used the wrong court and case type on CE file so the bundle containing this letter of instruction was not received by the Upper Tribunal until Mr Rahman provided it on 23rd June 2025.

6. Mr Rahman explained that Lexminders’ Chambers was a company that had only existed between February 2023 and June 2024 when it was dissolved. His evidence is that since this time he has been a self-employed barrister. We note however that the decision against which the appeal lay was sent on 27th March 2024 to the appellant at Lexminders Ltd, to Mr Rahman’s address, and was not sent to the address for Lextel Solicitors. We also note that before the First-tier Tribunal, on 25th February 2025, Mr Rahman completed the s.84 notice stating that he appeared as direct access counsel, and so was not instructed by Lextel Solicitors and his letter of acting appears in the bundle of documents before the First-tier Tribunal with the appellant instructing him as a direct access barrister.

7. The appeal proceeded to an error of law hearing before the Upper Tribunal Panel on 20th June 2025. In this hearing Mr Rahman was asked by Upper Tribunal Judge Blundell to take him to the relevant paragraph of Y (China) as it was noted that the citation was actually for YH (Iraq), a judgment of the Court of Appeal which is about s.94 certificates and paragraph 353 fresh claims and not delay. Mr Rahman responded to the Upper Tribunal Panel stating that he did not wish to rely upon YH (Iraq). He then said he meant to cite Beatson J’s judgment in R (WJ) v SSHD [2010] EWHC 776 (Admin), although he was again unable to take the Panel to anything in that case which bore on credibility assessments or section 8 of the 2004 Act. He then suggested that what he should have cited was Bensaid v UK [2001] ECHR 82, although he accepted that the ECtHR was unlikely to have said anything about a 2004 UK statutory provision in a decision which was made in 2001. The Panel then decided to take a break and provided by Mr Rahman with a copy of Ayinde and asked him to consider his position over lunch. After lunch Mr Rahman said he had undertaken ChatGPT research during the lunch break and the citation for Y (China) was correct, and it was a decision made by Pill and Sullivan LJJ and Sir Paul Kennedy. The Panel then directed Mr Rahman to provide them with a copy of Y (China) by 4pm on 24th June, or, alternatively if that was not possible, to explain what had happened. The Panel then started the next case and while this was happening Mr Rahman provided the Tribunal clerk with nine stapled pages which were not a judgment of the Court of Appeal but an internet print out with misleading statements including references to the fictitious Y (China) case with the citation for YH (Iraq). The notes contained no mention of the key case on delay JT (Cameroon) v SSHD [2008] EWCA Civ 878.

8. Mr Rahman then wrote to the Upper Tribunal on 24th June 2025 in accordance with the direction of the Panel stating that he had in fact meant to cite YH (Iraq) (and in particular paragraph 24 of that decision which he cites as saying all factors in an applicant’s favour must be taken into account) and apologising for his failure to cite the full and correct name of the case. He blamed this on having suffered from “acute illness” before drafting the grounds; and on having been on a visit to Bangladesh between 10th and 18th June 2025, and the fact that he had been hospitalised in Bangladesh due to diabetes, cholesterol problems and high blood pressure. He also argued that we should not penalise him for this error as he has five family members (wife and four children) depending on him.

9. At the hearing before us Mr Rahman provided a further letter dated 23rd July 2025, which has his address as Lexminders Chambers (formerly) and the lexminderschambers email at the top. In the letter he provides an analysis of Ayinde in which he acknowledges that it is a breach of professional duties to rely upon citations produced using AI tools without checking their veracity using reputable legal search engines such as West Law, EIN or Bailii. In this document and in his answers to questions from us Mr Rahman accepted that he had used ChatGPT to draft the grounds of appeal and to create the document he handed up via the clerk to the Upper Tribunal Panel on 20th June 2025. In his letter of 23rd July 2025 and in oral submissions he explains his behaviour on 20th June 2025 by saying he had returned from Bangladesh on 18th June 2025 unwell, and that he had felt under time pressure in the lunch break on 20th June 2025 as he needed to eat lunch due to his diabetes and so he thought ChatGPT would be a quick way to find the judgment in Y (China). He argues that he was misled by the search engine and is thus also a victim. He accepts in his letter of 23rd July that paragraph 24 of YH (Iraq) is not to do with delay but relates to the principle of anxious scrutiny, and so was not relevant. He says however that he has now undertaken some further professional training on immigration law which includes a presentation on AI and the Ayinde case. He offers an apology for his conduct and says that he should not be referred to the BSB as he now has a proper understanding, he has been honest, he will act with integrity in the future and is unwell and concerned as to how he will support his family.

Conclusions – The Facts

10. We have concerns that Mr Rahman is conducting litigation in this matter when he has no licence from the BSB to do so, and that he does not act simply as direct access counsel or as counsel instructed by Lextel Solicitors. This is due to the fact that he appears to have been acting as the representative for the appellant in that he received the decision from the respondent and appears to have taken steps in the litigation. We are also concerned that he is holding himself out to be from a set of chambers, namely Lexminders Chambers when in fact he is simply a self-employed barrister. We note that we have in fact already referred Mr Rahman to the Bar Standards Board in January 2025 in relation to concerns that he was conducting litigation without being authorised to do so in another appeal (UI-2024-004654), and also on the basis that there were concerns that he lacked basic professional competence.

11. Mr Rahman has accepted that he used ChatGPT on two occasions: when he drafted the original grounds of appeal and when he appeared before the Upper Tribunal Panel. He accepts that on neither occasion did he conduct any checks from a reputable source of legal information, such as Bailii, West Law, EIN or Lexis Nexis, to discover if the case Y (China) was genuine. It would appear that the authority may have swayed the Judge of the First-tier Tribunal to grant permission on the delay ground. When challenged by Upper Tribunal Judge Blundell on 20th June 2025, who strongly suspected that the case of Y (China) was not a genuine authority, Mr Rahman was very fairly given time over lunch and a copy of Ayinde, so that he ought to have been aware of the gravity of his situation. However Mr Rahman did not immediately admit to his unprofessional use of ChatGPT but astonishingly maintained that the case was genuine because of it having been evidenced by this AI large language model. Mr Rahman’s attempt to explain his behaviour by reference to his state of health and tiredness is not, we find, a valid excuse. If unwell counsel must refuse work and where they are due to appear before the Upper Tribunal they must inform the Tribunal at the earliest possible time, and if there is sufficient time the appellant must instruct alternative counsel. Taking unprofessional short-cuts which will very likely mislead the Tribunal is never excusable for these or any other reasons. Further in his written response to the Upper Tribunal Panel drafted on 24th June 2025 Mr Rahman inconsistently and dishonestly pretended that he had intended to rely upon the genuine case of YH (Iraq) which he now accepts was not the case, and indeed that the passage he identified in this previous letter was to do with anxious scrutiny and not delay.

12. Mr Rahman therefore has moved from an acceptance of the use of ChatGPT but with a defence of the research and a defence of the fake case of Y (China) on the day of the Panel error of law hearing; to a claim that it was a regrettable oversight and he did in fact want to rely upon an irrelevant but genuine case in his letter of 24th June 2025; to an acceptance before us that he used ChatGPT to assist in formulating the original grounds and in production of the document he handed to the Panel on 20th June 2024, and that the case of Y (China) is fake. We find therefore that Mr Rahman has directly attempted to mislead the Tribunal through reliance on Y (China), and has only made a full admission of this fact in his third explanation to the Upper Tribunal. He has not therefore acted with integrity and honesty in dealing with this issue, as well as having attempted to mislead the Tribunal in the grounds through the use of an AI generated fake authority.

13. We find that it is likely that Mr Rahman did not understand the limitations of large language models such as ChatGPT until he read Ayinde and attended his recent professional training on the issue but this is clearly not an excuse. The BSB issued guidance on AI and ChatGPT in October 2023 which identified the danger that it could produce misinformation including fabricated judgments complete with false citations, as is set out at paragraph 14 of Ayinde.

14. We therefore find that Mr Rahman has misused artificial intelligence and attempted to mislead the Tribunal contrary to the obligations as set out in the BSB regulatory framework which require him to observe his duty to the Court, to act with honesty and integrity, not to behave in a way which diminishes trust and confidence in the profession, and to provide a competent standard of work to clients.

Conclusions - Appropriate Next Steps

15. We have considered the guidance provided by the Administrative Court in Ayinde in deciding what steps we should take following this Hamid hearing.

16. We do not consider that this is a case where there is evidence that there has been a deliberate placing of false material before the Tribunal with the intention that the Tribunal will treat it as genuine. This is because we find that Mr Rahman did not know that AI large language models, and ChatGPT in particular, were capable of producing false authorities. It follows that this is not a case where it would be appropriate to refer the matter for police investigation or to initiate contempt proceedings.

17. We do however conclude that this is a case where referral to a regulator, in this instance the BSB, is most definitely appropriate. At paragraph 29 of Ayinde it is clearly stated that where false citations are placed before the Court, because of the lack of proper checks or otherwise, that referral to a regulator is likely to be appropriate. Mr Rahman undoubtedly carried out no proper checks. In this respect what is said at paragraph 81 of Ayinde is also relevant: “A lawyer is not entitled to rely on their lay client for the accuracy of citations of authority or quotations that are contained in documents put before the court by the lawyer. It is a lawyer’s professional responsibility to ensure the accuracy of such material.” Mr Rahman did not ensure the accuracy of what was placed before the Upper Tribunal. We are also guided in making this referral by the factors listed at paragraph 24 of Ayinde. In particular we find a referral is appropriate so that proper standards are set to stop false material coming before the Tribunal, which, in this case, we find contributed to the grant of permission, and thus potentially to the wrongful prolonging of the litigation, and has led to considerable public expense in addressing it through this hearing. We also find that it is relevant to the making of this referral that there was no immediate, full and truthful explanation given by Mr Rahman when he was first challenged by the Panel, and in particular that his letter written on 24th June 2025 was, we find, a less than honest attempt to pretend that he had made a simple typographical error and had not relied upon ChatGPT to do research and thereby on a false citation.

18. We trust the BSB will consider this referral, along with our previous referral in relation to Mr Rahman, in a timely fashion due to the gravity of the matter raised.

Fiona Lindsley

Upper Tribunal Judge Lindsley
11th August 2025