CNJ Suspends Goiás Electoral Court Ruling Over Signs of Unreviewed AI Text
Brazil’s National Council of Justice (CNJ) has suspended a ruling by the Regional Electoral Court of Goiás (TRE-GO) that stripped Goiânia city councillor Aava Santiago (PSB) of her seat, citing signs that generative AI was used without proper human review, g1 reported on October 10. The injunction, issued on the night of October 9 by Benedito Gonçalves, the national inspector of justice, returned Santiago to the city council and gave the court 15 days to explain how the ruling was produced.
Santiago lost her mandate in a party-infidelity case after moving from the PSDB to the PSB. The TRE-GO voted 6 to 1 in July to remove her and upheld that decision on October 6, ordering the council to swear in a PSDB substitute. Michel Magul took the seat on October 9, only hours before the CNJ intervened. Santiago’s defence argued that the final, signed text of the ruling contained commands, instructions and verification notes typical of AI-assisted drafting that nobody had cleaned up.
In his decision, Gonçalves wrote that the passages cited “show, in theory, the existence of notes that appear to correspond to internal review instructions” meant to check the factual and legal premises behind the ruling. He stressed that the CNJ is not reviewing the merits of the electoral judgement, which remain a matter for appeals to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), but protecting the effectiveness of its administrative oversight. The TRE-GO told g1 it does not comment on such cases. Magul said the decision was provisional and procedural and did not change the merits.
What it means in practice
The case tests the CNJ’s own rules on AI in the judiciary. Resolution 615/2025 requires judges and court staff to review and validate any draft produced with the help of language models before it is published, building on Resolution 332/2020, which set ethics and governance standards that include the primacy of human decisions over automated ones. Brazilian courts use AI to speed up drafting under heavy caseloads, and the TRE-GO now has to show which systems it used, how drafts were traced and what human supervision took place. The practical effect was immediate: Santiago was able to vote in the election of the council’s new governing board on Saturday morning.
The episode adds to a run of disputes over AI in Brazil’s legal and electoral systems, from the bar associations’ lawsuit over Enter’s legal AI platform to electoral prosecutors’ probe of chatbots that ranked candidates. For lawyers and judges alike, the lesson is the same: a text drafted with AI help remains the signer’s responsibility down to the last line.
What to watch: the TRE-GO’s explanation within the 15-day deadline, whether the CNJ opens a wider review of AI use in electoral courts, and how the TSE handles any appeal on the merits of the removal.