december 9, 2005jurix conference brussels 1 using legal definitions to increase the accessibility of...

December 9, 2005 Jurix conference Brussels 1

Using legal definitions to increase the accessibility of legal documents

Laurens Mommers, Wim VoermansDepartment of State and Administrative Law

Faculty of Law, Leiden University


Access to legal information?

legal information


A black box?

Different source types Large numbers of documents Complex version management for some

document types Specialized terminology Complex hierarchical relations between

documents Complex language use


Lawyers vs. Laymen...

...and the need for a Universal Business Adapter...



...a Babel Fish...



...or magic reading glasses


In the absence of which...

Realistic solutions should be found: Semantic means Smallest meaningful entities Meaningful relations


Creating a legal WordNet

Define concepts lexical vs legal concepts occurrence in documents

Impose relations lexical vs legal relations relations between documents


Legal definition techniques

No definition every-day meaning specialized language meaning no ambiguities

By context Definitions


Definition types

General definitions (whole new meaning): generalisations: characteristics of a concept specifications: instances of a concept abbreviations: meaning of abbreviated concepts recursive definitions: reference to other concepts

Partial definitions (partial new meaning): extension or limitation of the meaning of a known

concept in or outside the definition article

Definition by reference


Where do meanings come from?

Use the most obvious source of explicit legal meaning: authoritative legal documents

legislation, case law, customary law non-authoritative legal documents

literature legal interpretation methods (grammatical,

historical, teleological etc.)


Linking legal and regular meaning

Comparison is possible if definitions are made explicit comparative terminology (Sara Castagnoli)

perfect equivalence partial equivalence non-equivalence


Relation types

Content relations conceptual equivalence (partial or full) functional equivalence (partial or full)

Structural relations implemented in implemented as

Legal relation legal equivalence (partial or full)


Legal concept (1)

Synset: {service provider} Gloss: any natural or legal person providing

an information society service Source: Directive 2000/31/EC Definition type: generalisation


Legal concept (2)

Synset: {established service provider} Gloss: a service provider who effectively

pursues an economic activity using a fixed establishment for an indefinite period. [etc.]

Source: Directive 2000/31/EC Definition type: partial definition, includes

{service provider}


Relations

Hyponymy/hyperonymy {established service provider} hyponym_of {service provider}

Implementation{elektronische handtekening (1)} implemented_as {elektronische handtekening (2)}

Equivalence{elektronische handtekening (1)} equivalent_to {elektronische handtekening (2)}


Overview

< EC legal documents

national legal documents >

< EC legal concepts national legal concepts >

^relations: implementation (blue), equivalence (yellow)


Supporting mono-lingual accessibility

linking different vocabularies by similarity finding links between lexical and legal

vocabularies purpose:

mapping laymen’s questions to legal documents

linking legal documents to legally relevant documents

information retrieval


Supporting cross-lingual accessibility

linking different vocabularies by similarity finding equivalents and near equivalents

between legal vocabularies finding differences between concepts

purpose: comparative law research comparing implementations of EU legislation information retrieval


Using meaning to support users

Showing meanings (hyperlinks etc.) Showing differences in meanings (marking

identical parts) Showing meanings to disambiguate queries

(input of ambiguous term, manual disambiguation by user)


Real-world applications

Using legal and lexical definitions to explain terms in legal documents

Building networks of documents from different legal systems, enabling easier comparison

Comparative law research (practical and theoretical)


Please note...

legal information

...that this is a transparent box now

december 9, 2005jurix conference brussels 1 using legal definitions to increase the accessibility of...

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