on ontology and epistemology in law
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On ontology and epistemology in law. Joost Breuker Dept. of Computational Legal Theory (LRI) University of Amsterdam [email protected]. Overview. Views & ontologies of law legal theory law as a social system the world of legal documents - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
On ontology and epistemology in law
Joost Breuker
Dept. of Computational Legal Theory (LRI)
University of [email protected]
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Overview
Views & ontologies of law legal theory law as a social system the world of legal documents
Epistemological promiscuity in proposed legal ontologies
Towards integration of legal ontologies e-Court & E-POWER LeXML --> the legal world is ontologically distributed over the common
sense world
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Views on the legal world (1) Legal theory / legal philosophy
justifying the law (ethics; power & authority; `discovering’ law, the bootstrapping of legality, etc)
some universal legal concepts (Hohfeld, Kelsen,…) legal theory is concerned with epistemological issues
rather than ontological ones the legal decisions and the laws are meta-qualifications about
some case/world. these qualifications do not influence the world as such…but they
may have drastic real world consequences (law enforcement) legal theory is a reflection on practical legal problem solving
(decision making, argument, legal case assessment, legal drafting)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Language of Legal Relations (LLR)Hohfeld, 1913 ---> Layman Allen (74-97)
schemas of basic legal concepts as `legal positions’ e.g.
normative : right duty
no-right privilege
competence: power liability
disability immunity legal norms as cascading typed propositions
bootstrapping from basic: duty -typed all (43) relations are `derived’ by varying duty and introducing
power and conditionals
justifying the law as evolving complexity on norms
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
epistemological and ontological views in problem solving (Breuker, 95)
functions in problem solving methods:1. generating solutions (`explanations’)
2. testing solutions (arguing why solutions are (in)valid/correct)
3. arriving at a conclusion
components of solutions:
completesolution
case model
conclusion
argumentstructure
`explanation’
`justification’
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Views on the legal world (2) Law as a social control system
controlling (socially) undesirable behaviour norms: qualifying generic situations as (un)desirable persons & organizations as legal subjects autonomously acting social world --> legal cases: (stories) legal decision making (courts)
• assessing/compensating norm violations • resolving conflict
procedural justification: • reference to documentation (legal sources; `court-filing’ (case); …)• dispute, collecting evidence• procedural law
law enforcement:• monopoly of physical coercion (power) (police, prison, etc.)
legal system itself social organization and roles (judges, prosecutors, police, etc.)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
FOLaw (functional ontology) normative reasoning (Valente, Breuker & Brouwer, 99)
CASE
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
FOLaw (functional ontology) causal reasoning (Valente, Breuker & Brouwer, 99)
What has happened?
Who did what? Who is to be blamed?
CASE
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
proven to be very useful
inference structure for legal reasoning applied and works very well for:
legal knowledge systems (legal case assessment): ON-LINE `legal assessment shell’.
analyzing regulations (eg for educational systems) legal information retrieval
• CLIME project: 15.000 rules (norms) about ship `classification’ include international sea law (Winkels et al, 2002)
developing representation & inference on• norms (deontic operators): see Valente et al, 99 (no deontic logic!)• …responsibility….(Lehmann, forthcoming)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
but…
mainly epistemology…(except for the world knowledge!) other examples of legal core `epistemologies’:
Visser & van Kralingen (1995):• frames for norms, actions, concepts, etc. • metadata for DB fields
Mommers (`applied legal epistemology’ 2002): • disentangling epistemology from ontology?
NB: for SW etc epistemological frameworks may be as useful as ontologies! they shouldn’t be mixednb 2: tasks, problem solving methods, arguments etc are NOT
parts of ontologies but epistemic frames!
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Mixing O & E in a core for law(Mommers, 2002)
knowledge based model of the legal domain
ontologyof law 1
epistemicroles
ontological status layers
ontologyof law 2
ontologyof law 3
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Mixing O & E in a core for law(Mommers, 2002)
knowledge based model of the legal domain
ontologyof law 1
epistemicroles
ontological status layers
ontologyof law 2
ontologyof law 3
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Mixing O & E in a core for law(Mommers, 2002)
knowledge based model of the legal domain
ontologyof law 1
epistemicroles
ontological status layers
ontologyof law 2
ontologyof law 3
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
legal concepts as subtypes of `regular’ concepts…(1)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
legal concepts as subtypes of `regular’ concepts…(2)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
intermediary summary
the main business of law is justification of decisions/power epistemological frameworks rather than ontologies
• perfect for reasoning architectures (FOLaw), but
• not one has been expressed in a KR/DL formalism!
from exclusively normative to some subtyping of `regular’ (top) ontologies (see also Gangemi et al. 2001)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Views on the legal world (3)Legal information serving
access to legal documents/information is a major requirement in e-government & e-business on the SW
document standards for the WWW/SW: XML-Schemas & tagging/annotation LegalXML: USA (part of OASIS) LeXML: Europe (…informal…)
LeXML views on documents: form/structure:
• formal requirements (eg. standard phrases in Dutch legislation)• sectioning
role/function/legal-status content/topics….
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
lexml.nl: legal ontologies as part of the `dictionary’ (Boer et al, 2002)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
use of ontologies in (legal) information serving
Tagging/annotation manual: ontology as consistent standard vocabulary semi-automatic:
• instantiation/identification (“the judge” --> <judge-1>)• interpretation: ?? NLP --> instantiating RDF-triples etc ==>
abstracts (SW)
Information retrieval expanding query (CLIME; Winkels et al, 2002) clustering return set of documents by using additional
information (eg multiple classification, ranges )
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
what kind of ontologies?(example: e-Court)
documents: criminal trial hearings (transcriptions) document-(meta-) data (identifiers etc.)--> LeXML sectioning (-> tagging):
• formal trial phases ---> formal criminal law• nature of text/discourse: ---> dialogue
type of dialogue (interrogation; dispute) …argument-types/structure?
turn-taking (agents/roles)
topics (content)• common sense events/things….---> Wordnet?• criminal law (substantial, formal)
e-COURTIST-2000-28199
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Ontology of Dutch criminal law: agents
Agent:
PersonNatural person
Juristic personCompanyAssociationFoundation
OrganisationPublicMinistry of JusticePublic AuthorityPublic servicePublic-organisation-function
AdministrationProcureur-GeneralPublic Prosecutor Office
InvestigationPolice
Adjudication Court
Court-type (jurisdiction)Criminal court
Court-levelCantonal Court Court of appealSupreme Court
Private
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Ontology of Dutch criminal law: roles
Role:
Legal roleVictimPublic servant
JuridicalJudicial
JudgePresiding judge
ProsecutionPublic Prosecutor
InvestigatingInvestigating officerInvestigating judge
AdministrativeMinister of JusticeLaw clerk (griffier)Court bailiffRegistrar
Legal representativeGuardian (representing the victim)Prosecution (representing the state)Defence counsel (representing the defendant)
DefendantPrincipalAccessory
OffenderConvict
WitnessAnonymous witness
Expert
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
Ontology of Dutch criminal law: criminal actionsAction:Criminal offence: Felony
Offence against the security of the stateOffences against Royal DignityOffences against Heads of Friendly Nations and otherInternationally Protected PersonsOffences against Public OrderDuellingOffences Endangering the General Safety of Persons or PropertyOffences Against Public AuthorityPerjuryCounterfeiting and Falsifying
of Coinage, Government Notes and Bank Notesof Stamps, Seals and Marks
……..misdemeanour
Lesser offences related to safety of Persons and PropertyLesser offences related to Public OrderLesser Offences Related to Public Authority….
PunishmentPrincipal punishment
ImprisonmentFor lifeDeterminate period
DetentionCommunity serviceFine
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
what kind of ontologies?(example 2: E-POWER)*
goal: information management for drafting tax legislation documents: tax legislation
document-(meta-) data (identifiers etc.)--> LeXML sectioning (-> tagging):
• sectioning: chapter/article/`full-phrase’ .)--> LeXML • nature of text/discourse: ---> individual statements, many
references topics (content)
• tax law (substantial, formal)
ist 28125
*) European Programme for an Ontology based Work Environment for Regulations and legislation
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
agentperson
natural_personjuristic_person....
organization....role...
public_servantjuridical
tax_inspectorfinancial_crime_police_officer...judicial
judge...physical_object...
documentform
tax_form...regulation
tax_regulationphysical_quantity
amountmoney (M)income (M)...
action.....declaring_income_tax
procedure....appealing_legal
parts of ontology for tax law
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
typical legal documents
regulations statutes, codes, provisions, rules… contracts
forms and requests (citizen -> administration) exhibits and declarations (criminal law) transcripts of hearings (court sessions)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
What’s in a regulation
Dutch traffic code (RVV-90) art. 3 Vehicles should keep to the right art. 6 Two bicycles may ride next to each other art. 33 A trailer should have lights at the back
incoherent & inconsistent regulations are not typical text:
they are `comments’ (legal qualifications) on some generic situations that may exist in some implicit (legal) world
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
ontology of the (legal) world of traffic
action
traffic-term
vehicleagent
movepedestrian motorizedindicate
lane
part ofroad
driver
changedirection
position
relative
traffic consists of actions of drivers with vehicles that change positionson the road
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
legal ontology: layers?
legal domain specific a (legal) world (traffic, income, crime, …) but overlap between domains eg roles, documents, etc
law specific: document: regulation qualification: right --> forbidden --> violation
liability common-sense:
event, intention, object, etc. we better start from a `regular’ upper ontology for
consistency integration knowledge acquisition support…
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
e-COURT Upper (ECU) vs SUMO….
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
major distinctions
mental world ( analogous to physical world) ambiguous objects (eg agent): multiple classification (no `mind-body’
problem…) representation-relation of mental objects to physical objects (eg
concept --> symbol) mental_processes & mental_objects as ontological reification of
epistemic processes (eg reason, argument,…) occurrence: events & states as INSTANCES_OF (mental,
physical) processes and actions time/space: define positions of events/states physical world: processes as changes of matter/energy (..both..
i.e. multiple view but distribution..) not yet: life ( organic_matter!)
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia
conclusions
law is a typical `epistemic business’; not an ontologically founded one
legal domains have ramifications all over the common sense world
an upper ontology is very welcome: NOT TO IMPOSE STANDARDS!
• standards are to be expected & required for typical legal document description (LeXML,..)
to support distributed, local development of legal domain ontologies for:
• public access to law• harmonization of (European) law
Joost Breuker
OntoWeb-2002, Sardinia