Most legal expert systems to date have been purely rule-based. Case-based reasoning is a methodology for building legal expert systems whereby profiles of cases contained in a database, rather than specific legal rules, direct the outcomes of the system. Frame-based knowledge representation in legal expert systems involves the use of frames to represent legal knowledge. Case-based reasoning and frame-based knowledge representation offer significant advantages over purely rule-based legal expert systems in case-based law. These advantages are realizable by using the deep structure approach to knowledge representation. This involves searching beneath law at the doctrinal level for underlying fact patterns and structures which explain decisions in cases. This is demonstrated by the Malicious Prosecution Consultant, a legal expert system which operates in the domain of the tort of malicious prosecution. The Malicious Prosecution Consultant confirms the results of earlier research at The University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law that it is possible to build legal expert systems in unstructured areas of case-based law with relatively cheap commercially available expert system shells by using the deep structure approach to knowledge representation. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

A lentidão processual é um indicador de ineficiência da justiça e também uma de suas causas. A normal duração dos processos cíveis está comprometida por uma série de fatores, tais como o aumento da litigiosidade, a falta de infraestrutura dos órgãos judiciários e insuficiente utilização das novas tecnologias da informação, a deficiente formação dos juízes e advogados e, particularmente, a falta de efetiva repressão às más condutas dos sujeitos processuais. Este trabalho tem por escopo identificar as condutas processuais irregulares causadoras ou contributivas para a morosidade e traçar parâmetros objetivos para sua repressão. Para tanto, foram estudados os principais aspectos relativos ao comportamento abusivo dos sujeitos processuais que violam o direito à razoável duração do processo e trazem prejuízos processuais e extraprocessuais, tanto às partes envolvidas no litígio, quanto à dignidade da jurisdição. O trabalho busca demonstrar, portanto, que ética, compromisso e cooperação são peçaschave na solução do intrincado problema da lentidão processual e que, para resolvê-lo, não são necessárias alterações legislativas: a adequada aplicação dos atuais mecanismos repressores das condutas iníquas, à luz desses valores, é suficiente para a garantia da razoável duração do processo. / The slowness of judicial procedures is a symptom of the inefficiency of justice and is also one of its causes. The usual duration of civil proceedings is jeopardized by a number of factors, such as the increase in litigiousness, the lack of infrastructure of the judiciary bodies and insufficient use of the new information technologies, the deficient educational level of judges and lawyers, and particularly the absence of an effective repression to abusive conducts of the parties to a lawsuit. The scope of this paper is to identify the improper procedural practices that give rise or contribute to the slowness of justice and to establish objective parameters to repress it. For such purpose, a study was performed on the main aspects related to abusive practices carried out by the litigants, which infringe the right to a reasonable length of proceedings, and bring about an adverse effect in court and out of court, both to the parties involved in the litigation and to the dignity of the jurisdiction. Therefore, the paper searches to demonstrate that ethics, commitment, and cooperation are key components to the solution of the intricate problem of procedural slowness, and that no legislative amendments are required to solve it: in light of such values, the proper application of the existing repressive mechanisms for inequitable conducts is sufficient to guarantee the reasonable length of court proceedings.

A lentidão processual é um indicador de ineficiência da justiça e também uma de suas causas. A normal duração dos processos cíveis está comprometida por uma série de fatores, tais como o aumento da litigiosidade, a falta de infraestrutura dos órgãos judiciários e insuficiente utilização das novas tecnologias da informação, a deficiente formação dos juízes e advogados e, particularmente, a falta de efetiva repressão às más condutas dos sujeitos processuais. Este trabalho tem por escopo identificar as condutas processuais irregulares causadoras ou contributivas para a morosidade e traçar parâmetros objetivos para sua repressão. Para tanto, foram estudados os principais aspectos relativos ao comportamento abusivo dos sujeitos processuais que violam o direito à razoável duração do processo e trazem prejuízos processuais e extraprocessuais, tanto às partes envolvidas no litígio, quanto à dignidade da jurisdição. O trabalho busca demonstrar, portanto, que ética, compromisso e cooperação são peçaschave na solução do intrincado problema da lentidão processual e que, para resolvê-lo, não são necessárias alterações legislativas: a adequada aplicação dos atuais mecanismos repressores das condutas iníquas, à luz desses valores, é suficiente para a garantia da razoável duração do processo. / The slowness of judicial procedures is a symptom of the inefficiency of justice and is also one of its causes. The usual duration of civil proceedings is jeopardized by a number of factors, such as the increase in litigiousness, the lack of infrastructure of the judiciary bodies and insufficient use of the new information technologies, the deficient educational level of judges and lawyers, and particularly the absence of an effective repression to abusive conducts of the parties to a lawsuit. The scope of this paper is to identify the improper procedural practices that give rise or contribute to the slowness of justice and to establish objective parameters to repress it. For such purpose, a study was performed on the main aspects related to abusive practices carried out by the litigants, which infringe the right to a reasonable length of proceedings, and bring about an adverse effect in court and out of court, both to the parties involved in the litigation and to the dignity of the jurisdiction. Therefore, the paper searches to demonstrate that ethics, commitment, and cooperation are key components to the solution of the intricate problem of procedural slowness, and that no legislative amendments are required to solve it: in light of such values, the proper application of the existing repressive mechanisms for inequitable conducts is sufficient to guarantee the reasonable length of court proceedings.