Legal analogical reasoning - the interplay between legal theory and artificial intelligence

This thesis examines and critiques attempts by researchers in the field of artificial intelligence and law to simulate legal analogical reasoning. Supported by an analysis of legal theoretical accounts of legal analogising, and an examination of approaches to simulating analogising developed in the field of artificial intelligence, it is argued that simulations of legal analogising fall far short of simulating all the is involved in human analogising. These examinations of legal theory and artificial intelligence inform a detailed critique of simulations of legal analogising. It is argued that simulations of legal analogising are limited in the kind of legal analogising they can simulate - these simulations cannot simulate the semantic flexibility that is characteristic of creative analogising. This thesis argues that one reason for current restrictions on simulations of legal analogising is that researchers in artificial intelligence and law have ignored the important role played by legal principles in legal analogising. It is argued that improvements in simulations of legal analogising will come from incorporating the influence of legal principles on legal analogising and that until researchers address this semantic flexibility and the role that legal principles play in generating it, simulations of legal analogising will be restricted and of benefit only for limited uses and in restricted areas of the law. Building on the analysis of legal theoretical accounts of legal reasoning and the examination of the processes of analogising, this thesis further argues that legal theoretical accounts of legal analogising are insufficient to account for legal analogising. This thesis argues that legal theorists have themselves ignored important aspects of legal analogising and hence that legal theoretical accounts of legal analogising are deficient. This thesis offers suggestions as to some of the modifications required in legal theory in order to better account for the processes of legal analogising

A method for creating digital signature policies.

Increased political pressures towards a more efficient public sector have resulted in the increased proliferation of electronic documents and associated technologies such as Digital Signatures. Whilst Digital Signatures provide electronic document security functions, they do not confer legal meaning of a signature which captures the conditions under which a signature can be deemed to be legally valid. Whilst in the paper-world this information is often communicated implicitly, verbally or through notes within the document itself, in the electronic world a technological tool is required to communicate this meaning; one such technological aid is the Digital Signature Policy. In a transaction where the legality of a signature must be established, a Digital Signature Policy can confer the necessary contextual information that is required to make such a judgment. The Digital Signature Policy captures information such as the terms to which a signatory wishes to bind himself, the actual legal clauses and acts being invoked by the process of signing, the conditions under which a signatory's signature is deemed legally valid and other such information. As this is a relatively new technology, little literature exists on this topic. This research was conducted in an Action Research collaboration with a Spanish Public Sector organisation that sought to introduce Digital Signature Policy technology; their specific research problem was that the production of Digital Signature Policies was time consuming, resource intensive, arduous and suffered from lack of quality. The research therefore sought to develop a new and improved method for creating Digital Signature Policies. The researcher collaborated with the problem owner, as is typical of Participative Action Research. The research resulted in the development of a number of Information Systems artefacts, the development of a method for creating Digital Signature Policies and finally led to a stage where the problem owner could successfully develop the research further without the researcher's further input