Download From legal thesaurus to e-signatures

FROM LEGAL THESAURUS TO ESIGNATURES
Fernando Galindo [1]
Cite as: Galindo F., “From legal thesaurus to e-signatures”, in European Journal of Law
and Technology, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2010.
Abstract
In collaboration with several partners, in the middle of the 1980s the Inter-Disciplinary
Research Group on Data Protection and Electronic Signatures located in the Aragon
Autonomous Region of Spain began to carry out interdisciplinary research related to the
storage and retrieval of legal documentation. The objective was to use the technical
possibilities of expert systems to enable retrieval, with the use of suitable dialogues and
arguments, local legal texts, especially the legislation of the Aragón Autonomous Region.
The intended users would be both ordinary people and legal experts. The chosen method
was the construction of an intelligent legal thesaurus.
It was too early. We realized practical results could not be obtained at that time in the
Spanish context. The research did however generate philosophical ideas on access to
legal texts.
As the Internet became a reality, another object of research appeared: How to ensure
security of identity in electronic legal communications? Such security would assist legal
activities while at the same time protecting individual rights to communicate thoughts
freely when retrieving information. This involved work on identification management
and electronic signatures. The development of these activities began in the mid1990s.
We have now reinstated the idea of the thesaurus alongside e-signatures, in an attempt to
put into practice the objective of building systems that provide, as far as is possible, free
access to and recovery of legal documentation using internet for all citizens in the
'network' society. [2]
However, the collaborative potential of the Internet brought another opportunity: We
moved from a focus on local and Spanish regional development to collaboration on a
European and international basis. Joint activities were developed between research
centres in the area of computers and law. This was the point of departure for the
establishment of the Legal Framework for the Information Society: the LEFIS Network,
founded by the group.
1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of research work undertaken since the
1980s, characterized by the fact that it has used the technological resources available at
each moment in time as a mechanism for reaching conclusions adopting the guiding
objective of drawing up proposals that foster changes to legal practices in democratic
societies; technological development being one of the factors causing changes to the
activities of legal professionals throughout the period, and which have enabled the
establishment and consolidation of the 'network society'. [3]
The following specific technological concerns influenced our work:
1. The growth of adequate systems for the retrieval of documentation has
removed them from the limited realms of legal specialists and enabled
increased and expanded citizen access to legal regulations since the
mid1980s. This has helped to create the possibility of activating the
democratic principle of laws being the result of the will of the people created
by their representatives in assembly and in their name. [4]
2. The use, since the mid1990s of cryptographic techniques as instruments
that provide democratic guarantees for the expansion of Internet. They are a
means of preserving the implantation of legal principles essential to
democracies, especially as regards safeguarding security and freedoms of
speech and opinion, in relation to the use of information and communication
technologies (ICTs) for the transmission and reception of communications.
[5]
3. The developing democratic use of ICTs for professional legal practices on
a daily basis as key mechanisms for establishing the 'network society' as
regards public service provision by public administrations and provision of
justice through legal procedures of democratic states. [6]
This chapter is concerned with activities undertaken by the inter-disciplinary Research
Group on Data Protection and Electronic Signature (hereinafter Research Group) [7]. It
currently consists of 16 members working in law, mathematics, documentation and
informatics at the University of Zaragoza, the University San Jorge and the provincial
government of Zaragoza. Its main research activities include:
1. Legal thesauruses.
2. The use of personal identification devices.
3. Democratic implantation of the network society as regards the exercise of
legal activities by legal professionals.
The Research Group has not worked in isolation but in active discussion with other
research groups in law in Europe, the USA and Central and South America. These
conversations have resulted in the establishment of the Legal Framework for the
Information Society Network (LEFIS [8]) which currently consists of 126 members. The
network coordinator is the Research Group of the University of Zaragoza.
2 Thesauruses
During the second half of the 1980s, when the possibilities of the information and
communications technologies (ICTs) were being explored in the legal field, ICTs had
begun to be applied to the management of the administration of justice in courts and
tribunals. For the purposes of considering the possible consequences of its application to
the legal activities of democratic states and to raise awareness of the field of future jurists
training in law Schools, it was of interest to use as a reference legal theories that
advocated the study of law based on the specific characteristics of legal language of
regulations in terms of the formal expression of laws passed in the Parliament by the
democratic representatives of the citizens.
There was a wide-ranging doctrinal consensus that felt ICT theories and techniques
should be an aid to the automatic generation of regulations. [9]
The establishment of collections of words adequately studied and filtered, expressing
legal texts and problems compiled in dictionaries and thesauruses was the first phase of
the work to be carried out, the objective of which was the later generation of regulations.
The Research Group was also interested in exploring the possibilities provided by
philosophical legal discussions providing new theoretical insights on the nature of law
and legal language. This included especially studies on the interpretation and application
of laws, based on the theory of legal argumentation. [10]
For these purposes and jointly with mathematicians (algebra and statistics), and using
materials used in law school instruction since the nineteenth century (specifically civil
law, criminal law and administrative law), we began in the mid1980s to carry out
interdisciplinary research on the most significant potential for that ICT period: the
possibilities for storage and retrieval of legal documentation and for the representation of
legal knowledge through the use of logical programming languages.
The scope of the research was therefore more wide ranging than the mere electronic
storage and retrieval of documentation. The aim was also to employ the possibilities of
programs known as 'expert systems' to access and retrieve legal texts of local interest.
The initial example was constituted by civil legislation specific to the Autonomous
Region of Aragón. The idea was to provide legal experts and citizens with the text of
legislation using typical dialogs and arguments as auxiliary navigation tools for the
schematization and representation of legislation. A clear example of the foreseen results
of the prototypes was related to the production of conversations between non-jurist expert
users and the program on the possibility of realising 'juridically valid' acts in Aragón in
relation to the age of the person. We named this research project the 'Construction of an
Intelligent Legal Thesaurus'. [11]
The results of these activities were excellent in terms of the construction of legal
databases made up of legislation, jurisprudence and doctrines in a field of special interest
to the Autonomous Region such as historical and current law in Aragón. [12] As a result
of the research, resources such as databases were established, which provided interested
jurists and citizens with access to the contents of law. For historical reasons Spanish law
was highly centralised because of the eighteenth century centralizing trend under the
influence of enlightened rationalism. This trend was not reversed until the recognition by
the Spanish Constitution of 1978 of the State based on Autonomous Regions and the
exercise of the political principle of separation of powers between the legislature,
executive and judiciary and between central and regional bodies. Thus the resulting
databases provided interested jurists and citizens with access to the contents of both the
regional Aragon laws resulting from the decentralising 1978 constitution and relevant
laws applicable to Aragon in the centralised system that prevailed from the eighteenth
century to 1978.
The result of the research concerning the construction of expert systems to enable citizen
and specialist access to specific legal texts on the exercise of specific rights authorized by
the legal code was a different matter. The expert systems were programs that responded
in dialogs to simple questions referring to some specific regulations, different to general
Spanish regulations, on the obtainment of the age of majority in the Autonomous Region
of Aragón. The systems were constructed, but never moved on from the prototype stage.
[13]
Subsequently, research was carried out by the group on specific aspects of the contents of
regulations and especially procedural actions in courts and tribunals. [14] The
effectiveness of the model was thereby increased but still did not prove its usefulness
since there was a lack of resources and interest for it to pass from an experimental phase
to full applicability. Conclusions reached through this research were defined by the
preliminary nature of the approach; the emphasis was on technological development and
not in its actual application in the field. At that time the legal documentation stored in
digital support media was slowly beginning to be exploited by companies and public
institutions. However, it was impossible to obtain practical results or programs or
applications from this type of research, at least in the Spanish context. The objectives of
the industry were at that moment centred in the development of text retrieval systems for
key legal texts, and users had little interest in technologically more sophisticated
products. It was not yet the time to revise the tools that came from other countries,
especially the USA. Nevertheless this research did give rise to detailed studies and
descriptions of activities concerning the use of ICT and AI in accessing of legal texts and
other professional activities of jurists, [15] as well as the communicative concept of law
as defined by the relationship between lawyers and legal texts. [16]
3 Identification
With the arrival of the internet, real-time communication became commonplace; when
you could send and receive messages by electronic mail and buy goods from suppliers of
products and services on the internet by means of e-commerce, the following became
objects of study for the Research Group:
1. The continued development of proposals aimed at helping legal activities
by using text retrieval systems aided by more sophisticated navigation tools
and telecommunications. [17]
2. The drawing up of proposals aimed at guaranteeing the rights of specific
people for the secure free communication of their thoughts and decisions
when transmitting and receiving information employing resources that enable
greater and better retrieval of legal information in a way that is adapted to the
specific needs of identifiable users. This was the work aimed at guaranteeing
the management of the identification of issuers and receivers of messages and
guaranteeing the preservation of the integrity of the contents of messages by
means of electronic signatures. [18]
This research was undertaken since the mid1990s.
In many countries, the emergence of independent research centres for the provision of
free access to legal texts is easy to understand. According to democratic principles,
regulations should be publicly accessible: they are drawn up by the representatives of the
people. If they were only accessible by means of the use of commercial text retrieval
systems, the principle of free access to legal texts would not be met. To this end, the
research centres of other countries looked to break the dynamics of this
commercialization of the dissemination of legal texts stored digitally by establishing
'unofficial' documental collections 'online' freely accessible to all the citizens of the
country. [19] In contrast in Spain, legislation and administrative regulations have been
made accessible through official channels to everyone, freely on the Internet since
1995.[20] From this time on, the official bulletin for governmental regulations has been
available online to all citizens. For practical purposes, the same is true of regulations
enacted by all of Spain's autonomous regions. These initiatives were formally generalized
on 1st January 2004.
As far as judicial legal documentation is concerned, in 1997 the General Council of the
Judiciary set up the Legal Documentation Centre in San Sebastian (Basque Country) to
be the body responsible for publicizing the sentences of the high court, the high courts of
justice of the autonomous regions, tribunals and other legal bodies. Commercial
organisations were permitted in many cases to determine the way in which access could
be gained to the documentation using their own retrieval systems and charging for their
services in accordance with the guidelines laid down for the processing and retrieval of
legal documentation by the Council of Europe, the European Community and the
regulations of each country.
These circumstances led to the research group focusing its work not so much on the
construction of generic systems for the retrieval of legal documentation, but rather on the
construction of systems supporting legal decision-making undertaken by the institutions
in question, or by the public administration itself, the courts and legal professionals
employing new ICT systems such as email and internet, the use of which started to
become generalized by the second half of the 1990s). [21]
The strategy made it possible to concentrate on the study of the organizational and
functional changes these uses called for from a range of organizations and legal players.
As a result, towards the dawn of the new millennium, the study focused on a
phenomenon that began at that time by referring to it with the expression 'electronic
government' or 'electronic administration'. It was therefore possible to study the
expansion of the use of governmental mechanisms and their effectiveness in the legal
activities of the public administrations. [22]
At the same time special emphasis was placed on the study of the characteristics and
requirements of the transmission and reception of electronic messages made using the
Internet. Special attention was given to the virtual potential (the possibility of
communicating in real time with correspondents located anywhere around the world), its
weaknesses (the possibilities of third parties gaining access to the contents of messages
and the impersonation of issuers and receivers of messages) and the solution to the latter.
This required consideration of the advantages of real-time or asynchronous worldwide
communication and the problems of abuse by third parties through access to message
content and identity theft. Since the second half of the 1990s the solution has focused,
and also in terms of regulations, on the use of public key coding, since this resource was
considered capable of addressing the weaknesses of the communications systems
provided by the internet in accordance with the fact that communication undertaken using
the resource could be seen, modified and faked by third parties.
This was when European directives and state regulations were enacted centred on the
regulation of the 'electronic signature', the construction of public key infrastructures and
the regulation of information society services, all of which would enable the implantation
of the norms. [23]
From 1997-2000, the group worked with notaries, property registrars, public prosecutors
and lawyers on the characteristics required for confident use of the internet, and proposed
the construction of institutions, systems and public key certification bodies to foster
confidence in accordance with democratic principles. [24]
The use of public key as a resource for the establishment of the solution to the
weaknesses of internet communications through coding required the setting up of public
key infrastructure services, the function of which was to ensure the identification codes of
the users. The coded messages dispatched were specific to one or other person who had
entrusted their personal data as the holder of the key to a third party, the holding body of
the infrastructure of the public key. Confidence was required to deposit personal
information in the hands of third parties in order to achieve safe identification on the
internet by using public keys for commercial or e-government purposes, or equally when
trading by employing communication media (ICTs), [25] or more recently when
accessing public services through what has become known as the 'electronic
administration' or 'electronic government'.
At that time the Research Group assisted in the establishment of two 'public key
certification systems', one based on notaries [26] and a second 'public key infrastructure
system' which is currently used in the academic and research environments. [27]
4 Network society
As a consequence of technological developments over recent years, people can no longer
harbour doubts concerning the possibility of a working network society, also known as
the omnipresent society.[28] In other words, a society in which those with access to the
Internet can use it for social, political, commercial and legal communication worldwide.
These include the execution of remote activities such as the buying and selling of
products, obtaining public services (certifications, pension collection), meeting
obligations as companies and citizens (tax payments), economic transactions, banking
transactions, working from home or remotely, learning, watching films, watching
television, documentation consultation, use of audiovisual media, playing games, etc. are
all possible and have their corresponding effects. The internet also enables legal
professionals to execute professional activities remotely: the dispatch and reception of
notifications, transmission of documents, audio and video recording of legal processes,
execution of witness reports, the presentation of expert reports, witness and defendant
interrogations, declarations of those involved in a process, etc. We should also remember
that this is fostered by the fact that from a political point of view, we are living today in a
governance society, an expression that sums up the implantation of the ideal of efficiency
and rules by the public administration already tried and tested in the private sector in the
management of companies and administrative management. These rules are progressively
becoming the rules of action of the public administration and the administration of
justice, in coexistence with other legal principles for action such as participation and
legality specific to democracies. [29]
All the above has meant the introduction of new guidelines for action in legal domains.
The use of management techniques developed in the business world has taken on special
importance, in contrast to the past when administrative or legal management was
basically ordered by the application of the principle of legality.
The changes have been recognized institutionally: the existence of regulations concerning
organizational and procedural changes to the administration of justice should be taken
into account: For example, those expressed in the reforms of legal offices. These norms
make a functional and institutional distinction between the work of judges, who take the
judicial decisions, and the work of registrars or auxiliary staff, who are responsible for
the management of their processing or who advocate the establishment of service letters
in the administration.
The other mechanism prescribed by the legislation is the use of ICTs to speed up
communication between the courts and of course between the citizens and the offices
responsible for public services, in order to improve the quality of the services provided to
the citizens.
With a greater sense of purpose than in the 1980s, these circumstances have led the group
to continue working on research areas aimed at studying and understanding the
characteristics of democratic legal activities in the network society, and to propose
guidelines for learning and critical reflection to future jurists consistent with the provision
of professional competencies required to carry out their activities, in order that they can
execute their work in a conscientious, reflective, critical and democratic manner. [30]
The characteristics of the work differ from earlier times during which, for example, the
function of the ICTs was limited to being excellent auxiliary instruments or improved
typewriters, or programs that in general terms provided legal documentation retrieval
systems. In today's world it is possible for individuals to exercise their obligations and
rights as legal professionals, workers, professionals, students, owners, salesmen, users,
purchasers or citizens from an ICT terminal, computer or mobile telephone and at the
same time preserve the guarantees that are set by democratic laws when exercising their
respective rights and obligations.
For this reason the Research Group is currently continuing to put into practice the idea of
drawing up an intelligent legal thesaurus that provides individualized access to legal
documentation. In other words, it is continuing to construct documentation retrieval
systems and infrastructures for public passwords that provide confident use of the
electronic signatures and make a reality out of the objective of constructing systems that
enable, to the greatest extent possible, free and secure access to the transmission and
recovery of legal documentation through the internet. It puts into practice the exercise of
rights and duties provided by law using their own language, without regard to the
physical location of the storage of the legal documentation or the place from where it is
accessed.
The Research Group, along with other groups, makes doctrinal contributions aimed at
understanding this reality, at the same time as designing, by way of examples, teaching
offerings and modules for law professionals and students (whether they are jurists or not)
in the competencies and skills they require. The guiding principle is that legal functions
have to be developed by fostering democratic principles, governance and the potential of
the network society.
The contribution is threefold:
1. The content of teaching, which has to be adapted to the working needs of
the organization of the democratic network society and legal institutions.[31]
2. Tests for the exercise of legal activities in the network society, when taking
into account the complexity involved in democratic professional activities,
where the experience of the Virtual Campus on Law and ICTs constituted by
the Group aims to meet this objective. [32]
3. These activities are possible because the group has originated the
establishment and functioning of the LEFIS Network as an international
motor for research, development and teaching in computers and law in the
network society.
4.1 Material
The material, modules and teaching content constitute a response to a range of
competencies and skills required by the jurists, which have been defined by the research
group in accordance with the guidelines for the teaching reform proposed by the
European universities' teaching change process known as the Bologna process, by means
of several initiatives (competencies and skills), listed as follows:
1. Access to legal texts.
2. Practical Applications of knowledge.
3. Ability to reason and present legal arguments.
4. Understanding and interpretation of legal norms and their application in
practice.
5. Knowledge of ICT law.
6. Interpretation of regulations in accordance with the circumstances of each
case and the social realities of the moment in which they must be applied.
7. Understanding how to present information verbally and visually.
8. Teamwork.
The names assigned to topics and teaching modules completed in order to gain
experience in professional competencies and skills are given in the following list of
courses that constitute the typical teaching offering of the research groups working jointly
in the field:
Courses in Spanish [translation] :
1. Archives: rights of access
2. Computers, mobile phones and internet
3. Criminal aspects of library and archive activities
4. Cybercrime
5. Digital certificates and electronic signatures: a new means of identification
on internet and before the government
6. Digital literacy and management of bibliographical patrimony
7. Electronic administration
8. Electronic administration and digital government
9. Electronic government
10. Electronic signatures
11. Ethics and legislation for engineers
12. Information society observatories
13. Institutional aspects of electronic administration
14. Legal and code of conduct framework for documentary activity
15. Legal documents and standards
16. Libraries: rights of access versus intellectual property
17. Philosophy of law
18. Registry and notary offices: documents and rights of access
19. Remote contracting: ecommerce
20. Rights and governance
Courses in English :
21. Company law and management
22. Computer law in an international perspective
23. Computers and law
24. Copyright law
25. Cybercrime
26. Data protection
27. E-governance and e-government
28. E-government activities for environmental information
29. Electronic government
30. Forensic computing
31. Foundations of private law
32. ICT in legal domain
33. Information law
34. Information security law
35. IT law
36. Jurimetrics
37. Law in information society
38. Legal aspects of electronic commerce
39. Legal informatics
40. Legal knowledge management
41. Special topics in legal informatics
Course in German :
42. Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz
Courses in Portuguese :
43. Aspectos jurídicos do comércio electrónico
44. Cidadania digital e inclusão social
45. Democracia virtual e estado moderno
46. Direito da informática
47. Direito do turismo
48. Governo eletrônico
49. Justíça, sistemas especialistas e da democracia
The material given is on offer grouped by specialties or teaching qualifications. Those
adopted up until now are those on offer as postgraduate courses or permanent training
and are specifically:[33]
1. Master (60 ECTS) in the Legal framework for the information society, the
compulsory subjects of which are: computers, mobile phones and Internet,
Legal documents and standards, and Law and governance
2. Specialized diplomas (30 ECTS) in: Law office, other legal offices
(lawyers, notaries, attorneys, etc.), Electronic administration and government,
Governance, electronic trade: legal and ethical framework and legislation for
engineers
3. In addition the subjects making up the Master and the Diplomas can be
studied individually (6 ECTS).
From 2008/09 academic year, educational material has been on offer that combines
official teaching aimed at obtaining graduate and post graduate qualifications in Law and
ICT fields, offered by education centres in a range of countries in which the research and
teaching groups are based, which participate in educational initiatives as part of what is
known as the 'Shared Law and Information and Communications Technologies Virtual
Campus'.
4.2 The 'Shared Law and Information and Communication Technologies Virtual
Campus'
These materials are currently being developed and put into practice in the field of action
provided by a virtual campus, promoted by the European Union, the objective of which is
to set up law and ICT studies that can be undertaken remotely by students enrolled in the
universities of the campus. [34]
The modules, qualifications and materials described in the previous section are now on
offer in the campus. They are explained in a traditional manner using the resources of the
masters' classes and practical exercises. They are also completed with contents that are
presented and accessible on the internet in accordance with the needs expressed by
individual students, who identify themselves by using coding techniques; specifically
public keys.
The subjects are also explained using modules adapted to students that only use the
learning resources available on the Internet. The expansion in the medium term of this
type of official education studies is the objective of the campus.
Specialties and subjects serve as auxiliary tools for the contents of legal documents:
manuals, academic work, reports, legal texts, sentences and doctrine, proposed by the
teacher in collaboration with the students with regard to the denominations of the studies,
modules, qualifications, diplomas and subjects that provide the framework for the
educational offering. The materials the students themselves produce during their studies
and work expressed in Wikipedia format from the modules that make up part of the
virtual network are also used for reference purposes. [35] All the students enrolled can
access the material freely and so can the material proposed by the teacher. The material
or the documents are retrieved by using words contained in them that, as for any
thesaurus, work as search words. [36]
The collections of words selected by teachers constitute organized thesauruses expressed
in the language of the people constructing them. Specifically, a system that will enable
the retrieval of educational material by means of the following mechanisms is currently
in its production phase:
1. Words contained literally in the documents or materials being retrieved.
2. Key words selected by expert teachers from the material or stored
documentation.
3. Conceptual schemes of the material, developed by archivists using
classifications or standard schemes of the knowledge.
The six volumes of the LEFIS series (more than 44 works in English, Spanish and
Portuguese),[37] other writings, LEFIS documents, legislation and jurisprudence will be
considered elements that make up the material. The legislation, regulations and
jurisprudence will be stored in freely accessible systems.
The tools described above constitute the starting point for the construction of a
Wikipedia/Encyclopedia, the use of which will be open on the internet for consultations
made by anyone anonymously, those without identification, any interested web surfers,
etc.
In contrast the tools that enable individualized access to particular information will
guarantee their freedom and will ensure the right of the user to the protection of personal
data and freedom of the inquiry as well as safeguarding their confidence. To this end
public password certification bodies (PKIs) chosen by the user will be employed.
4.3 The LEFIS Network
The expressed networking activities could not be possible without the European and
international joint activity of partners involved in the LEFIS Network. This section deals
with establishment and activities of the Network.
The Network was necessary. Neither the expressed societal changes nor the
corresponding legal, political and educational needs were unforeseeable a couple of years
ago. A number of initiatives had been developed across Europe to explore the ongoing
development of modern societies. Yet, they remain in a sense isolated initiatives,
inasmuch as there is little contact and knowledge transfer among them. Having regard to
the tight intertwining of theoretical, political, legal, technical and educational aspects of
the network society, there is actually a certain lack of coordinated and integrative
initiatives.
In order to surmount this problem, a strong, consistent and comprehensive legal
framework for the knowledge and information society was needed that combined
educational, policy aspects.
This idea underlay the establishment of the LEFIS Thematic Network (LEFIS-TN) from
2003 till 2007 which, with European Union support, has emerged as a solid teaching and
research infrastructure on law and ICT. The continuity and progress of this approach,
however, necessitates further work on its social and institutional impact, feasibility and
acceptance in relation to other matters in law. [38]
It is no doubt that such an infrastructure requires a highly qualified and experienced
group of participants. In this regard, the LEFIS-TN has taken advantage from several
previous European Union -supported projects and initiatives with like-minded, albeit
narrower scope. Three milestones may be underlined in this regard.
Firstly, LEFIS activities can be traced back to 1999, when nineteen university faculties of
law from ten European countries joined together under the coordination of the University
of Zaragoza to develop and implement high-quality teaching models for both
postgraduate and undergraduate courses in IT law. This initiative was promoted by the
SOCRATES/ERASMUS programme, in particular through CDA, PROG and DISS.
Secondly, in an attempt to bring together the academic, and the industrial and
institutional perspectives, the LEFIS Thematic Network took these efforts (from 2003 to
2007) to a new level and has significantly extended the dissemination activities. [39] It is
worth highlighting that these activities stretch worldwide through the European Union's
ALFA or AECI programmes that were the origin of the EGOBS Observatory activities.
[40]
Thirdly, from 2007 the Law and ICT Shared Virtual Campus project was initiated with
the support of the European Union's Virtual Campus Programme that extended the initial
development, and included lifelong learning, taking as partners for the teaching of the
law the majority of the members of the proposed new LEFIS Network. [41] The project
uses a mixture of traditional and new methodologies and technologies, and engages with
the European Union's higher education reform processes. The LEFIS Network
encourages joint activities with other partners (including commercial partners) through
bilateral agreements.
5 Conclusion
This chapter has demonstrated that a correct definition of the context of research and
development is required; taking into account the specific needs and functions of jurists,
legal institutions and processes for successful application development.
Thus, the isolated consideration of technical applications based on abstract legal norms,
legal theories or expert systems which are not grounded within the socio-legal context
will result in inappropriate development. Such development requires research groups to
be on the same wavelength as the actors, institutions and processes in the specific legal
domain. The achievement of these tasks can benefit greatly from the shared experience of
national and international collaboration.
[1] Department of Penal Law, Philosophy of Law and History of Law, University of
Saragossa. [email protected].
[2] The term is derived from M. Castells, The Information Age: Economy Society,
Culture. Vol 1 The Rise of the Network Society 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell 2000).
[3] Technological development is one of the forces behind the network society and
current legal practices, but is not the only one. Another entails the globalization
phenomenon, and there are still more: multiculturalism for example. We are not
concerned here with either the description or study of these other causes. We do however
recognize their relevance to our work.
[4] See especially J. Bing, Handbook of Legal Information Retrieval, (Oslo: Norwegian
Research Center for Computers and Law 1984).
http://www.lovdata.no/litt/hand/hand19910.htm l (visited 15 December 2008).
[5] See J. Dumortier, S. Kelm, H. Nilsson, G. Skouma. and P. Vas Eecke, The Legal and
Market Aspects of Electronic Signatures in Europe, Study for the European Commission
within the eEurope 2005 Framework, (Leuven: Interdisciplinary Centre for law and ICT
2005).
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/2005/all_about/security/electronic_sig_r
eport.pdf (visited 15 December 2008)
[6] A. Saarenpää, 'Perspectives on Privacy' in A. Saarenpää, (ed.), Legal Privacy. LEFIS
Series, vol. 5, (Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias 2008).
[7] The Group commenced work in the 1980s but was formally recognized by the
government of Aragon in 2003. It is funded annually by this government in
complementary form to the obtained funds in public concourses and knowledge transfers
projects. For information on the Research Group see
http://www.lefis.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=173&Itemid=511
(visited 15 December 2008).
[8] LEFIS is a registered mark. www.lefis.org. The European LEFIS mark is the number
005625132, published in the Bulletin of Communitarian marks number 2007/066, the
10/12/2007.
[9] M. Sanchez-Mazas, 'Modelli aritmetici per l'informatica giuridica', Rivista
Informatica i Diritto, 1978, 2; C. deBessonet, 'An automated intelligent system based on
a model of a legal system', Rutgers Computer and Technology law Journal, 1984, 10.
[10] A. Aarnio, R. Alexy, A. Peczenick, 'The foundation of legal reasoning',
Rechtstheorie 1981; J. Habermas, Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns, (Frankfurt:
Suhrkap 1981).
[11] F. Galindo, 'El derecho, ¿habla o lenguaje? Una aproximación a su carácter a través
de la informatización de una disposición jurídica', in C. Martin Vide, (ed.), Lenguajes
naturales y lenguajes formales, (Barcelona: Facultad de Filología 1985).
[12] See: http://www.unizar.es/derecho/standum_est_chartae/ (visited 15 December
2008)
[13] Another example of the limited possibilities of the use of these resources in law was
the expert system on the Latent Damage Act of 1986, P. Capper and R. Susskind, Latent
Damage Law - The Expert System: A Study of Computers in Legal Problem Solving
(London: Butterworths1988).
[14] F. Galindo, 'Expert systems as tools for the explanation of the legal domain: The
ARPO experiences', (1992) 4 Expert Systems with Applications 363-367.
[15] F. Galindo, 'The legal decision as a political problem. A starting point for a
profitable relationship between AI and law', Adversaria l Reasoning and Artificial
Intelligence and Legal Reasoning. Workshop Notes from the Eighth National Conference
on Artificial Intelligence (Boston: AAAI90 1990).
[16] On the communicative concept of law see also: F. Galindo, 'The communicative
concept of law' Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial law, 41, 1998.
[17] Baaz, M., Galindo, F., Quirchmayr, G., Vazquez, M., 'The application of Kripketype structures to regional development programs' in V. Marik, J. Lazansky and R.
Wagner, (eds.), Database and Expert Systems Applications, (Heidelberg: Springer 1993).
[18] J. Pastor, J. Delgado and F. Galindo, (eds.), Criptografía, privacidad y
autodeterminación informática (Zaragoza: Facultad de Derecho and Centro Politécnico
Superior 1995).
[19] The movement 'Law via the Internet' movement. For post1997 Conferences see:
http://www.ittig.cnr.it/LawViaTheInternet/index.php?option=com_content&
view=article&id=16&Itemid=61 (visited 16 December 2008). See Greenleaf this volume.
[20] References to this evolution in Spain are located at:
http://www.poderjudicial.es/eversuite/GetDoc?DBName=dPortal&UniqueKeyValue=%2
025039&Download=false&ShowPath=false (visited 15 December 2008).
[21] An early and concrete example in relation with the activities of the public
administration and Internet is in: F. Galindo, J.F. Muñoz and A. Rivas, 'Elaboración de
un plan estratégico para la implantación del correo electrónico en la Diputación General
de Aragón' in IV Jornadas sobre las tecnologías de lainformación para la modernización
de las Administraciones Públicas, TECNIMAP95 (Madrid: Ministerio para las
Administraciones Públicas 1995).
[22] F. Galindo and G. Quirchmayr, (eds.), 'Advances in electronic government', PreProceedings of theWorking Conference of the International Federation of Information
Processing (Zaragoza: Seminario de Informática y Derecho, Universidad de Zaragoza
2000).
[23] The basic directives were: Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 24 October 1995 on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the
Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data, the Directive
1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 1999 on a
Community Framework for Electronic Signatures; the Directive 2000/31/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on Certain Legal Aspects of
Information Society Services, in particular Electronic Commerce in the Internal Market
('Directive on Electronic Commerce') and the Directive 2002/58/EC of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 Concerning the Processing of Personal
Data and the Protection of Privacy in the Electronic Communications Sector (Directive
on Privacy and Electronic Communications)
[24] The most significant project was the EU-supported Aequitas project 'The admission
as evidence in trials of penal character of electronic products signed digitally'. The final
report (1998) is located at: http://cordis.europa.eu/infosec/src/ study11.htm (visited 15.12.
2008)
[25] F. Galindo, 'Public key certification providers and e-government assurance agencies.
An appraisal of trust on the Internet' in Database and Expert Systems Applications.
Workshops (Los Alamitos: IEEE 2001).
[26] The joint activities with the Spanish notaries originated the Notaries Agency of
Certification: http://www.ancert.com (visited 15 December 2008).
[27] See the PKI system LEFIS UNIZAR in:
https://lefis.unizar.es/pki/index.php?lang=en (visited 16 December 2008)
[28] 'Ubiquitous society' is a very usual expression in Nordic countries: R. Aarnio, 'Data
protection here and now' in A. Saarenpää, (ed.), Legal Privacy, LEFIS Series, vol. 5,
(Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias, 2008).
[29] F. Galindo, 'Justicia, gobernanza y legalidad' Seqüência, vol 17, 2007.
[30] F. Galindo, (ed.), Gobierno, derecho y tecnologías: Las actividades de los poderes
públicos (Cizur Menor: Thomson Civitas, 2006).
[31] F. Galindo, (ed.), LIACTES/IFIP Workshop on E-Government: Legal, Technical
and Pedagogical Aspects, Albarracin Spain, 8-10 May 2003,The Journal of Information,
Law and Technology (JILT). http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/
jilt/2003_1/liactes (visited 16 December 2008).
[32] The Law and ICT Shared Virtual Campus is supported by the European Union,
Programme Virtual Campuses, Project
133837-LLP-1-2007-ES-ERASMUSEVC. http://courses.lefis.unizar.es/(visited 16,12,
2008).
[33] http://courses.lefis.unizar.es/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&
id=94&Itemid=241 (visited 16 December 2008).
[34] See note 33.
[35] This is LEFISpedia. See: http://www.lefis.org/wiki/index.php5/Concepts (visited 16
December 2008).
[36] This is the LEFIS digital Library.
http://courses.lefis.unizar.es/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=335 (visited 16
December 2008)
[37] See: http://puz.unizar.es/catalogo/colecciones_libros.php?coleccion=40 (visited 16
December 2008)
[38] LEFIS Final Report at: http://www.lefis.org/images/documents/management/
Progress_and_final_reports/lefis/Informe_Final_Lefis_2007_ENDEFGALk.Pdf (visited
20 August 2009).
[39] See: http://www.lefis.org.
[40] See http://www.egobs.org.
[41] Ibid.