VAGUENESS IN POLISH AND AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW LANGUAGE AND DEFINITIONS (A STUDY OF POLISH AND US LEGAL SYSTEMS)

Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu dokonanie przeglądu oraz ocenę teorii dotyczących zjawiska nieostrości w języku prawa karnego na przykładzie definicji legalnych.W teorii mając za zadanie ułatwienie interpretacji przepisów i ustaw, w praktyce definicje legalne często same posądzane są o nieostrość, zjawisko, które z jednej strony zagraża stabilności systemu prawnego, z drugiej zaś czynią prawo bardziej elastycznym i zaadaptowanym do zmieniających się warunków.W jaki sposób to zjawisko potraktujemy zależeć będzie od wielu czynników. Wśród nich można wymienić gałąź prawa, z która mamy do czynienia lub też typ systemu prawnego.W przypadku prawa karnego, wyrażenia nieostre powinny być unikane. Jednakowoż niektóre systemy prawne “piętnują” nieostrość bardziej niż inne. W amerykańskim systemie prawnym doktryna “void-for-vagueness” najlepiej ilustruje negatywny stosunek tamtejszych instytucji do nieostrego języka.Z kolei w polskim systemie prawnym wyrażenia te nie są tak otwarcie krytykowane. Pozostawiając luz interpretacyjny, język tego typu może ułatwić wyrokującym zadanie w przypadku, gdy zbyt sztywne trzymanie się litery prawa doprowadzi do zaprzeczenia regułom zdrowego rozsądku.Po dokonaniu przeglądu obu systemów, autorka próbuje wysunąć definitywne wnioski, czy nieostrość w języku prawa karnego powinna być postrzegana jako cecha istotna czy też niepożądana.The paper below intends to present and evaluate the theories of vagueness in the language of criminal law as exemplified in legal definitions. In the theory aimed to facilitate the task of interpretation of laws and statutes, in practice legal definitions they may be vague themselves, a phenomenon which either jeopardizes the stability of law and order, or makes law more flexible and compliant with the changing status quo. How one approaches the matter would depend upon a variety of factors. Among them we will find the branch of law or the type of the legal system. As far as criminal law is concerned, vague expressions are to be avoided. However, some legal systems “stigmatize” them more than others. In the American legal system the “void-for-vagueness” doctrine best illustrates the negative attitude of law enforcement institutions towards vague and unclear language. In the Polish law, on the other hand, it is not so explicitly criticized. Leaving room for free interpretation, vague language may prove a useful tool if literal interpretation defies the so-called “common-sense” understanding (very often referred to in works dedicated to law interpretation). Once a review of both legal systems is made, the author tries to arrive at a definite conclusion whether we should treat vagueness in the language of criminal provisions as something sought-for or rather undesirable

Certified Context-Free Parsing: A formalisation of Valiant's Algorithm in Agda

Valiant (1975) has developed an algorithm for recognition of context free languages. As of today, it remains the algorithm with the best asymptotic complexity for this purpose. In this paper, we present an algebraic specification, implementation, and proof of correctness of a generalisation of Valiant's algorithm. The generalisation can be used for recognition, parsing or generic calculation of the transitive closure of upper triangular matrices. The proof is certified by the Agda proof assistant. The certification is representative of state-of-the-art methods for specification and proofs in proof assistants based on type-theory. As such, this paper can be read as a tutorial for the Agda system

Towards Parameterized Regular Type Inference Using Set Constraints

We propose a method for inferring \emph{parameterized regular types} for logic programs as solutions for systems of constraints over sets of finite ground Herbrand terms (set constraint systems). Such parameterized regular types generalize \emph{parametric} regular types by extending the scope of the parameters in the type definitions so that such parameters can relate the types of different predicates. We propose a number of enhancements to the procedure for solving the constraint systems that improve the precision of the type descriptions inferred. The resulting algorithm, together with a procedure to establish a set constraint system from a logic program, yields a program analysis that infers tighter safe approximations of the success types of the program than previous comparable work, offering a new and useful efficiency vs. precision trade-off. This is supported by experimental results, which show the feasibility of our analysis

Homogeneity in the free group

We show that any non abelian free group \F is strongly $\aleph_0$-homogeneous, i.e. that finite tuples of elements which satisfy the same first-order properties are in the same orbit under \Aut(\F). We give a characterization of elements in finitely generated groups which have the same first-order properties as a primitive element of the free group. We deduce as a consequence that most hyperbolic surface groups are not $\aleph_0$-homogeneous.Comment: 26 page

Inductive-data-type Systems

In a previous work ("Abstract Data Type Systems", TCS 173(2), 1997), the last two authors presented a combined language made of a (strongly normalizing) algebraic rewrite system and a typed lambda-calculus enriched by pattern-matching definitions following a certain format, called the "General Schema", which generalizes the usual recursor definitions for natural numbers and similar "basic inductive types". This combined language was shown to be strongly normalizing. The purpose of this paper is to reformulate and extend the General Schema in order to make it easily extensible, to capture a more general class of inductive types, called "strictly positive", and to ease the strong normalization proof of the resulting system. This result provides a computation model for the combination of an algebraic specification language based on abstract data types and of a strongly typed functional language with strictly positive inductive types.Comment: Theoretical Computer Science (2002