JURIX - law and information technology
12 December 2014. Today, the two-day “27th International Conference JURIX Legal Knowledge and Information Systems” has just ended. The event, organized by the Foundation for Legal Knowledge Based Systems, was held at Jagiellonian University. This is one of the most important events devoted to the law, computer science, new technologies and artificial intelligence.
Recently there has been a very vivid worldwide discussion going on about the possibility of building a computer system that is able to automatically generate text of the legal conclusions and to justify them by presenting the arguments pro and contra. Creating of such a virtual arguing assistants may significantly affect the work of lawyers.
JURIX is an annual opportunity of meeting for academics, practitioners, government and industry interested in the impact of new technologies on the understanding, development and application of the law and the use of artificial intelligence methods in legal reasoning.
27 papers were presented during this international event, both theoretical and practical. Argumentation-based models for statutory interpretations which allow us to provide solid footing for the representation of norms, right and other legal concepts were discussed. The role of evidences in legal reasoning was also emphasized by determining plausible scenarios as explanations for evidences and the various roles played by the evidence for punishment and reward. Also more practical and concrete approach and experiences were presented.
The most interesting were practical examples how to connect law (which does not exist in isolation) with society. Initiatives adopting crowd sourcing and open source intelligence in order to create datasets were presented. The need for open data services regarding law and related juridical documents was also highlighted. The conclusion was that such data has to be open completely to facilitate not only reading, but also the re-use of documents. Only such an approach will allow the development of legal information systems.
Michał Araszkiewicz PhD, INPRIS expert, was an Organization Chair of the conference.