The General Council of the Judiciary has opened a disciplinary file against a magistrate of a Provincial Court for using ChatGPT to draft a sentence after uploading all the case proceedings to the tool.
The opening of the file coincides with the advancement of artificial intelligence in companies, where 21.1% of Spanish companies with ten or more employees already use it, but in the judiciary, the CGPJ has just expressly set the limit. The instruction approved on January 28, 2026, prohibits these systems from deciding, evaluating evidence, or applying the law autonomously.
The magistrate left the trace of the questions asked to ChatGPT in the sentence
The file stems from a specific event. The judge drafted the resolution by asking questions to artificial intelligence and forgot to delete the queries made during that process from the final document.
Ricardo Gonzalo Conde, promoter of the disciplinary action, maintains that the magistrate presented an apparent sentence motivated by artificial methods and that he acted by evading his jurisdictional function.
The proposed sanction includes fifteen days of suspension and a fine of 501 euros. Against that criterion, the Prosecutor's Office proposes the dismissal of the file, understanding that no disciplinary infraction has occurred.
The instruction of January 28, 2026, vetoed automated judicial decisions
The decision on the file has not been made. The Disciplinary Commission of the CGPJ will now have to rule, which will have to decide between the promoter's proposal and the Prosecutor's Office's request for dismissal.
Since January 28, 2026, the governing body of judges has established that artificial intelligence can only function as a support tool and always under real, conscious, and effective human control.
That instruction prohibits artificial intelligence systems from making judicial decisions, evaluating facts or evidence, or interpreting and applying the law on their own. It also prevents the incorporation of content generated by these tools into judicial resolutions without critical, complete, and personal validation by the judge or magistrate.
Furthermore, judges can only use artificial intelligence tools provided by the competent Justice administrations or by the CGPJ itself. The same rule prohibits introducing judicial data into unauthorized systems.
In parallel to that framework, the National Institute of Statistics placed the use of artificial intelligence among Spanish companies with ten or more workers at 21.1% in the first quarter of 2025, which represents 8.7 points more than a year earlier.