Modelling reasoning about evidence in legal procedure

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the modelling of reasoning about evidence in legal procedure. To this end, a dialogue game model of the relevant parts of Dutch civil procedure is developed with three players: two adversaries and a judge. The model aims to be both legally realistic and technically well-founded. Legally, the main achievement is a more realistic account of the judge's role in legal procedures than that provided by current models. Technically, the model aims to preserve the features of an earlier-developed framework for two-player argumentative dialogue systems.

REFERENCES

• 1: T. Bench-Capon. Specification and implementation of Toulmin dialogue game. In Legal Knowledge-Based Systems. JURIX: The Eleventh Conference, pages 5-19, Nijmegen, 1998. Gerard Noodt Instituut.
• 2: G. Brewka. Dynamic argument systems: a formal model of argumentation processes based on situation calculus. Journal of Logic and Computation, 2001. To appear.
• 3: Thomas F. Gordon, The Pleadings Game: an exercise in computational dialectics, Artificial Intelligence and Law, v.2 n.4, p.239-292, 1993/1994 [doi>10.1007/BF00871972]
• 4: Thomas F. Gordon , Nikos Karacapilidis, The Zeno argumentation framework, Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Artificial intelligence and law, p.10-18, June 30-July 03, 1997, Melbourne, Australia [doi>10.1145/261618.261622]
• 5: Jaap C. Hage , Ronald Leenes , Arno R. Lodder, Hard cases: a procedural approach, Artificial Intelligence and Law, v.2 n.1, p.113-167, 1993/1994
• 6: H. Jakobovits. On the Theory of Argumentation Frameworks. Doctoral dissertation Free University Brussels, 2000.
• 7: R. Leenes. Hercules of Karneades: Hard Cases in Recht en Rechtsinformatica. (Hercules or Karneades: hard cases in law and legal informatics). Twente University Press, Enschede, 1998. (In Dutch).
• 8: A. Lodder. DiaLaw. On Legal Justification and Dialogical Models of Argumentation. Law and Philosophy Library. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London, 1999.
• 9: R. Loui. Process and policy: resource-bounded non-demonstrative reasoning. Computational Intelligence, 14:1-38, 1998.
• 10: Ronald P. Loui , Jeff Norman , Joe Altepeter , Dan Pinkard , Dan Craven , Jessica Linsday , Mark Foltz, Progress on Room 5: a testbed for public interactive semi-formal legal argumentation, Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Artificial intelligence and law, p.207-214, June 30-July 03, 1997, Melbourne, Australia [doi>10.1145/261618.261655]
• 11: J. MacKenzie. Question-begging in non-cumulative systems. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8:117-133, 1979.
• 12: John L. Pollock, Cognitive Carpentry: A Blueprint for how to Build a Person, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995
• 13: Henry Prakken, On Dialogue Systems with Speech Acts, Arguments, and Counterarguments, Proceedings of the European Workshop on Logics in Artificial Intelligence, p.224-238, October 02, 2000
• 14: Henry Prakken, Modelling defeasibility in law: logic or procedure?, Fundamenta Informaticae, v.48 n.2-3, p.253-271, November 2001
• 15: H. Prakken. Relating protocols for dynamic dispute with logics for defeasible argumentation. Synthese, 127:187-219, 2001.
• 16: Henry Prakken , Thomas F. Gordon, Rules of Order for Electronic Group Decision Making - A Formalization Methodology, Collaboration between Human and Artificial Societies, Coordination and Agent-Based Distributed Computing, p.246-263, January 1999
• 17: H. Prakken and G. Sartor. A dialectical model of assessing con icting arguments in legal reasoning. Artificial Intelligence and Law, 4:331-368, 1996.
• 18: G. Vreeswijk. The computational value of debate in defeasible reasoning. Argumentation, 9:305-341, 1995.
• 19: D. Walton and E. Krabbe. Commitment in Dialogue. Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1995.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

General Terms:
Design, Theory