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Low reported severity Regulatory Action

Paraíba, Brazil: judge fines a lawyer R$32,800 over hidden AI commands in a petition, G1 reports; state bar later suspends two lawyers in such cases

A judge of the 5th Mixed Court of Sousa, Paraíba, found hidden instructions aimed at artificial intelligence tools spread over seven pages of a lawyer's motion for clarification in a public-competition case in June 2026, including an order to ignore impartiality and a note calling it a test of whether the judge used only AI to decide. The judge fined the lawyer two penalties of R$16,400 (R$32,800 in total) for bad-faith litigation and contempt of the court's dignity, and referred the case to the Paraíba bar (OAB-PB) and the state prosecutors, G1 reports. The defence said the commands were not inserted deliberately and blamed an error in exporting a file prepared with AI support. An appeal judge refused to suspend the fines on 30 June, the trial judge kept them on reconsideration, and in July, G1 reports, the OAB-PB preventively suspended two lawyers after opening procedures into two hidden-command cases, one of them the Sousa case.

AI system
Unidentified AI drafting tool
Occurred
Jun 2026
Reported
19 June 2026
Event location
Brazil
What the AI did
Relation unknown
Reported harm
Legal HarmFinancial LossProfessional Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Justice · Work
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources
5 claims: 5 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Artificial intelligence tools that might assist judicial drafting, targeted by hidden commands in a petition; no tool is named, and no source reports that any AI system processed or acted on the commands. The defence said the file had been prepared with AI support

What Happened

The petition. According to G1, a candidate who passed a public competition for a teaching post in the municipality of Sousa brought a writ of mandamus that the court denied. The candidate's lawyer then filed a motion for clarification (embargos de declaração). Judge Philippe Guimarães Padilha Vilar of the 5th Mixed Court of Sousa found hidden commands spread over seven pages of that motion, including an instruction to ignore impartiality, guidance for the appeal to be granted and a note saying it was a test of whether the judge used only AI in decisions. G1's July report adds that the text was in small white italic type, invisible in normal reading.

The sanction. The judge treated the practice as prompt injection, an attempt to compromise the impartiality and security of the proceedings, and imposed two fines of R$16,400. Copies went to the OAB-PB and the state prosecutors, and access to the petition was restricted. Migalhas reports that the judge later rejected the defence's requests for reconsideration, writing that the petition had been intentionally used as a vehicle for private, unauthorised technological experiments to test any computer systems supporting the judiciary.

The defence and the bar. Olhar Digital, citing the court's communiqués, reports that the defence denied inserting the commands deliberately, blamed a material error in exporting a file prepared with AI support and argued that the penalties were imposed without a prior chance to explain; an appeal judge refused urgent suspension on 30 June without deciding the merits. In July the OAB-PB president preventively suspended two lawyers after opening procedures into two hidden-command cases, one of them the Sousa case, G1 reports, saying the suspension is provisional and does not mean guilt.

Limits. No source says that any AI system read or acted on the commands, which tool, if any, the court used, or whether the lawyer's own AI-assisted drafting produced the hidden text.

Reported harm

According to G1 and Migalhas, the lawyer was fined R$32,800 by the court for hidden commands aimed at AI tools in a petition, referred to the bar and prosecutors, and, G1 reports, was one of two lawyers the OAB-PB preventively suspended in July after opening procedures into two cases. The defence denies deliberate insertion.

Outcome

Ongoing

The judge imposed two fines of R$16,400 each (bad-faith litigation and an act against the dignity of justice), restricted access to the petition and sent copies to the OAB-PB for possible disciplinary breach and to the Paraíba prosecutors for possible procedural fraud (G1, 19 June). An appeal judge denied urgent suspension of the fines on 30 June (Olhar Digital, citing the court's communiqué), and the trial judge rejected reconsideration and kept both fines (Migalhas, 14 July). The OAB-PB president preventively suspended two lawyers after opening procedures into two hidden-command cases, the Sousa case among them, stating that the measure is provisional and not a finding of guilt (G1, 14 July). The disciplinary and criminal referrals are pending.

What remains unknown

  • Whether any AI system used by the court processed the hidden commands.
  • Whether the lawyer or an AI drafting tool produced the hidden text.
  • The outcome of the OAB-PB disciplinary procedure, the prosecutors' review and the appeal on the merits.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The harm is the court's and the bar's response to hidden commands aimed at artificial intelligence tools: G1 and Migalhas report that the judge found instructions to ignore impartiality and a note testing whether the judge used only AI to decide, treated them as prompt injection and fined the lawyer, and G1 reports the bar's suspension over the same conduct. The defence attributes the text to an error in exporting a file prepared with AI support. No source reports any AI system reading or acting on the commands, so no relation describing an AI system's own action toward the lawyer is established (unknown; consequential response).

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The judge of the 5th Mixed Court of Sousa found hidden commands spread over seven pages of a lawyer's motion for clarification in a teaching-competition writ, including an instruction to ignore impartiality and a note calling it a test of whether the judge used only AI in decisions.

Causal attribution. The court's finding as G1 and Migalhas report it.

  • g1.globo.com(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'Nesse processo, a Justiça havia negado a concessão do mandado de segurança e, posteriormente, a defesa apresentou um recurso, chamado de embargos de declaração. Neste artifício judicial, a Justiça encontrou a utilização de IA, com comandos ocultos distribuídos em sete páginas da petição.'; 'teste para saber se o juiz usa apenas IA nas decisões'
  • migalhas.com.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'Durante a análise do recurso, o magistrado constatou a existência de instruções ocultas distribuídas em sete páginas da peça processual.'
Reported The judge imposed two fines of R$16,400 each, for bad-faith litigation and for an act against the dignity of justice, and sent copies to the OAB-PB and the Paraíba prosecutors.

Causal attribution. G1's account of the decision.

  • g1.globo.com(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'O magistrado aplicou duas multas de R$ 16,4 mil por má-fé e ato contra a dignidade. O caso foi enviado à OAB e ao Ministério Público.'
Reported On reconsideration the judge kept both fines, writing that the petition had been intentionally used as a vehicle for private, unauthorised technological experiments to test computer systems supporting the judiciary.

Causal attribution. Migalhas's account of, and quotation from, the reconsideration decision.

  • migalhas.com.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'Ao rejeitar os pedidos de reconsideração apresentados pela defesa, o magistrado preservou as duas multas de R$ 16,4 mil e determinou o cumprimento das sanções anteriormente impostas.'; 'A petição foi intencionalmente instrumentalizada para servir de vetor de experimentos tecnológicos privados e não autorizados'
Reported The defence denied inserting the commands deliberately and attributed them to an error in exporting a file prepared with AI support; an appeal judge refused urgent suspension of the fines on 30 June 2026.

Causal attribution. Olhar Digital citing the court's communiqués; the defence position is the defence's own claim.

  • olhardigital.com.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'A defesa negou ter inserido os comandos deliberadamente e alegou erro material na exportação do arquivo preparado com apoio de IA.'; 'Em 30 de junho de 2026, o desembargador Onaldo Queiroga negou a tutela de urgência'
Reported In July 2026 the OAB-PB president preventively suspended two lawyers after opening procedures into two cases of hidden commands in petitions to the TJPB, one of them the Sousa case, stating that the suspension is provisional and not a finding of guilt.

Causal attribution. G1's account of the bar's measure.

  • g1.globo.com(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'Dois advogados tiveram o exercício profissional suspenso de forma cautelar pela Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, Seccional Paraíba (OAB-PB)'; 'após a abertura de procedimentos para investigar os dois casos'; 'O outro caso ocorreu na Comarca de Sousa, onde um advogado também passou a ser investigado.'; 'Segundo a Ordem, a medida é provisória e não significa que os advogados já foram considerados culpados.'

Sources

4 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in full in Portuguese by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-13 (HTTP 200); the English assertions are the agent's translation and no human translator reviewed them. G1 reports the June decision and quotes it; the decision itself was not inspected. Applies to s1.

Read in full in Portuguese by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-13 (HTTP 200); the English assertions are the agent's translation and no human translator reviewed them. Migalhas reports and quotes the reconsideration decision; the decision itself was not inspected. Applies to s2.

Read in full in Portuguese by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-13 (HTTP 200); the English assertions are the agent's translation and no human translator reviewed them. G1 reports the OAB-PB suspensions and the defence submission in one of the two cases. Applies to s3.

Read in full in Portuguese by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-13 (HTTP 200); the English assertions are the agent's translation and no human translator reviewed them. Olhar Digital cites the court's official communiqués (which returned 403 to the agent) for the defence position and the 30 June appeal ruling. Applies to s4.

Event countries: Brazil. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Brazil.

The petition was filed in the 5th Mixed Court of Sousa, Paraíba, Brazil, in a case about a municipal teaching competition in Sousa (G1); the bar measure was taken by the OAB-PB. The lawyer's residence is not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-13: Published as a consequential-response case: a court fined a lawyer R$32,800 and referred the lawyer to the bar and prosecutors after finding hidden commands aimed at AI tools in a petition, according to G1 and Migalhas, and G1 reports that the bar later suspended two lawyers pending inquiries into two such cases, one of them this case. The defence denies deliberate insertion. The lawyer is a private person and is not named.

People described

A lawyer acting for a candidate in a municipal teaching competition, fined by the court and, according to G1, one of two lawyers the bar preventively suspended after opening procedures into two cases; a private person, not named in the reports or here.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One person: the lawyer fined and suspended in the Sousa case. The other suspended lawyer belongs to a separate case and is not counted; the candidate client is not reported harmed.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#brazil#legal-profession#sanction#prompt-injection#court-ai#bar-suspension

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Paraíba, Brazil: judge fines a lawyer R$32,800 over hidden AI commands in a petition, G1 reports; state bar later suspends two lawyers in such cases. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-paraiba-court-fines-lawyer-over-hidden-ai-commands-in-petition-bar-suspension

BibTeX

@misc{2026_paraiba_court_fines_lawyer_over_hidden_ai_commands_in_petition_bar_suspension,
  title = {Paraíba, Brazil: judge fines a lawyer R\$32,800 over hidden AI commands in a petition, G1 reports; state bar later suspends two lawyers in such cases},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-paraiba-court-fines-lawyer-over-hidden-ai-commands-in-petition-bar-suspension}
}

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