Knowledge-based Hypertext for Legal Documentation

• Autore: Roberto Colotti/Rosa Maria Di Giorgi/Bona Inghirami/Roberta Nannucci
• Pagine: 195-210

Page 195

@1. Introduction

Legal documentation appears to be particularly suitable for hypertext applications because it deals with texts which, by their very nature, are highly correlated, both explicitly and implicitly: legislation refer to other legislation, court decisions interpret legislation or refer to other decisions, legal authority comments on both case law and legislation. Therefore, hypertext systems become precious tools for acquiring complete legal information [Wilson 1988] [Wilson 1992].

The reference sources for integrated legal documentation fall into the following categories:

- Legislation; international conventions, treaties and agreements; European Community legislation (directives, regulations, etc.); national legislation (central government, regional, provincial and municipal legislative measures) that specifically regulate the matter or a different matter which is, nevertheless, pertinent to the subject being dealt with (for example, in environmental law, regulations regarding town and country planning, public health and health and safety).

- Case law: decisions made by the Constitutional Court, the Council of State, Regional Administrative Tribunals, the Supreme Court, lower courts, etc.

- Legal authority: text books, treatises, monographs, commentaries, collective works and proceedings of conferences, encyclopaedias, journals. This type of documentation may also include the codes, repertories and case note reports and bibliographies, namely collections of legislation, case law and legal authority, respectively.

@2. Cross-referencing Legal Sources

If the assistance offered by hypertext systems makes- them the ideal tool for consulting legal documents in general, which are so rich in notes,Page 196 citations and references, this is even more so in the case of legislation, where this feature is so accentuated that a single section of a law often becomes incomprehensible unless it is read together with other sections and/or other texts. Sometimes, it is even impossible to understand the subject of the legislation we are reading about if we- do not resort to this kind of cross-referencing [Wilson 1990],

In the legislative domain, references, also known as citations, are of particular importance since they determine whether the legislation is in force, its enforecability or integration. By legislative references, we mean all the referral between the text of one Act and another (external references) pr referrals to another part of the same Act (internal references).

An amendment, instead, is defined as any provision bearing in any manner on a prior legislative text or which, in any way, affects the normative content of provisions previously in force. There is a division within the amendments that may be termed as: substitution, integration, abrogation, derogation, prorogation and suspension [Osservatorio legislativo interregionale 1991]. This typology may prove to be interesting for hypertext applications in that each type of reference or amendment could be associated with a particular type of link.

From this point of view, the hypertext links may become the links for providing users with an up-to-date version of the legislative document thanks to the processing of the references. In fact, something more than just pure and simple navigation can be carried out with regard to amendments. These references apply in a certain period whereby it is possible, at any time, to have a specially reconstructed virtual text by incorporating the various amendments containing only the provisions in force then [Maioli et al 1993]

Witt, regard to case law data, the most interesting decisions are those complete with the massima or, in other words, a brief abstract of the principale of law applied in the given case. Certain law journals specialize in the publication of the ´massimasª alone; others also report, fully or in part, the complete decisions. While a useful information tool, the ´massimaª may, in fact, turn out to be incomplete, making it necessary to refer back to the original decision. Furthermore, there are often references to precedents in the body of the decision.

Published decisions are frequently accompanied by a more or less extensive comment written by scholars on the subject, either critical of the decision or supporting it, citing previous case law and legal authority, whether upholding the decision or contrary to it. But even if we leave aside this particular, type of contribution, known as the case note, legalPage 197 authority abounds with this type of reference. Authors support, refute, integrate or simply refer to opinions expressed by other authors and to interpretations given by the courts.

Finally, it goes without saying that, for both the legal scholar and the judge, the necessary point of reference is, in all cases, the provision they are called upon to interpret or apply.

@3. A Hypertext Application in Environmental Law

The hypertext model allows us to approach information through a process of comparison which is similar to that of the human mind: the user ´navigatesª through the information along a network of links laid out between the single pieces of information that constitute the nodes. In these systems, special attention must be paid to the user interface if the system is to be easy to learn and user friendly.

On the other hand, the freedomn in management potentially offered by the hypertext model also introduces certain drawbacks in searching a documentary collection that is too broad, due to the limited power of the help functions provided. A ´knowledge overloadª may occur to the user's detriment, given the active role he is required to play [Baird et al. 1990] [Sillitoe et al. 1990].

@@3.1. The Hyperlaw project

A system prototype, called Hyperlaw was designed and implemented using the Hypercard software in a Macintosh Apple environment. This was part of a joint research project between the Istituto per la Documentazione Giuridica of the Italian National Research Council and the Department of Computer Science of the University of Padua. The aim of the project was to assess how the potentialities of hypertext technology could be used to design a tool for integrated management of the wide and nonuniform body of legal information [Agosti...