A taxonomy for modelling discretionary decision making in the legal domain

ABSTRACT

In attempting to model how legal discretion is exercised, we have previously discussed the notion of open texture and introduced the notion of boundedness of legal domains. Through a series of case studies we have noticed that an important factor has been overlooked: namely whether the decisions made in a given domain are binary. We develop a set of three criteria for computer modeling of legal discretion and discuss the eight octants that arise from the three-dimensional space formed by these criteria.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
decision support, discretion, jurisprudence, knowledge modeling