Legal knowledge engineering methodology for epistemologically sound, large scale legal expert systems is developed in this dissertation. A specific meta-epistemological method is posed for the transformation of legal domain epistemology to large scale legal expert systems; the method has five stages: 1. domain epistemology; 2. computational domain epistemology; 3. shell epistemology; 4. programming epistemology; and 5. application epistemology and ontology. The nature of legal epistemology is defined in terms of a deep model that divides the information of the ontology of legal possibilities into the three sorts of logic premises, namely, (1) rules of law for extended deduction, (2) material facts of cases for induction that establishes rule antecedents, and (3) reasons for rules, including justifications, explanations or criticisms of rules, for abduction. Extended deduction is distinguished for automation, and provides a map for locating, relatively, associated induction and abduction. Added to this is a communication system that involves issues of cognition and justice in the legal system. The Appendix sets out a sample of draft rule maps of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, known as the Vienna Convention, to illustrate that the substantive epistemology of the international law can be mapped to the generic epistemology of the shell. This thesis deflects the ontological solution back to the earlier rule-based, case-based and logic advances, with a definition of artificial legal intelligence that rests on legal epistemology; added to the definition is a transparent communication system of a user interface, including an interactive visualisation of rule maps, and the heuristics that process input and produce output to give effect to the legal intelligence of an application. The additions include an epistemological use of the ontology of legal possibilities to complete legal logic, for the purposes of processing specific legal applications. While the specific meta-epistemological methodology distinguishes domain epistemology from the epistemologies of artificial legal intelligence, namely computational domain epistemology, program design epistemology, programming epistemology and application epistemology, the prototypes illustrate the use of those distinctions, and the synthesis effected by that use. The thesis develops the Jurisprudence of Legal Knowledge Engineering by an artificial metaphysics. / Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)

Doctor of Philosophy / There has been dissatisfaction over some court rulings among lay people in Japan. In this thesis I propose a model to explain the discrepancies between legal experts and lay people. Chapter 1 presents the purpose of this thesis, and an overview of the model called the Linguistic Legal Model. Chapter 2 shows the Japanese legal system including a new lay-participation system, the mixed court system. Chapter 3 provides background information on Japanese trademark issues. In Chapter 4 and 5, the Linguistic Legal Model is explored with Layer Analysis and Register Analysis. For Layer Analysis in Chapter 4, the notion of layering is presented from a linguistic perspective whereas legal reasoning is discussed from the notion of different modes of thought. Register Analysis in Chapter 5 is discussed in terms of genre and register. Japanese legal language is examined together with English legal language. In Chapter 6 and 7 I examine trademark cases. The Golden Horse case in Chapter 6 presents court’s judgment of the likelihood of confusion which is in common with that of lay people. However, it is argued that the thought process in the legal judgment court was not convincing. In Chapter 7, the Snack Chanel case portrays a judgment characteristic of the legal layer, which is quite different from the common sense of lay people. This discrepancy is explained from the perspective of different layers and different modes of thought. Chapter 8 concludes with a brief summary of this thesis.

<p>The main purpose of this study was to examine how social workers interpret and legally practice the 6 § LVU (Care of Young Person´s Act) in regards to legal cer-tainty. The papers intention was to investigate and describe the legal scopes limits and deficiencies, linked to practical social work. The study was composed on a legal dogmatic method which implies to examine the law and its elaboration. The investi-gation was based on different court rulings of care of youths according mostly to 6 § LVU. Perusal and interpretation of the rulings have been necessary in order to clarify the issues. The investigation was also based on Professor Asbjørn Kjønstad's analysis method of social work. In addition to accomplish the purpose of the study following legal principles have been mentioned and used: objectivity principle, principle of le-gal certainty, principle of equal treatment, the official principle, principle of propor-tionality, the timeliness principle and the urgency principle. The analysis shows that 6 § LVU has deficiencies which leads to difficulties for social workers to interpret and use the law in practical social work. The total conclusion of this study is that 6 § LVU requires revision in order to ensure citizens legal certainty.</p>

The Variable Child concerns the legal decision-making process in unaccompanied child refugee applications, and the role that conceptions of childhood play in the process. I examine when particular types of knowledge are drawn upon by legal actors, as well as the effects of the claim-making practices that create meaning, or truth effects, in legal decision-making. I identify how legal actors exercise discretion by investigating how facts are constructed with different ideas about childrens competence, abilities and knowledge. The Unaccompanied Child Refugee Evidentiary and Procedure Guidelines, which governs legal decisions, has embedded within it various, sometimes competing, conceptions of the child and childhood. These multiple notions create considerable discretionary space for refugee officers to make decisions about individual cases. My examination of legal decisions reveals a strategic use of vulnerable and/or responsible conceptions of childhood. Another strategy used to establish facts in these cases is to exclude the cultural differences of childhood both these practices are accomplished through employing several different knowledge moves. Refugee officers invoke vulnerable and/or responsible constructions of childhood to displace the impact of other/alternative constructions of childhood, namely Chinese ideas of parental relations. This avoids the potential for legal decisions to set standards for similar cases in the future. Childhood studies have documented how different axes of scholarly inquiry produce different understandings, typologies, and knowledges of the child and childhood. What remains understudied is how competing knowledges of the child and childhood are applied, negotiated, and formalized in legal decision-making. My study investigates how power relations constitute particular constructions of childhood, and the consequences these relations have for childrens lives. Unlike examining childhood as contextual, I document how variable understandings of the child and childhood are constituted, institutionalized, and normalized through the law. My study examines the complexities of legal decision-making, a process that is often black-boxed. I also trace which conceptions of childhood are drawn upon to substantiate legal claims, and how a social context for the child and childhood emerges. By examining the relations of law in the context of children, my work contributes to the growing area of childhood studies and socio-legal practices.

During the information sessions that the Scripps Mock Trial Team hosts at the beginning of the school year for those interested in mock trial, it's customary for all the returning team members to talk about why we decided to join mock trial in college. We had no team at my high school, but at the end of my senior year, my AP American Government teacher decided that having a mock trial in class would give us valuable insight into the American legal system. I was chosen to give the closing statement for the defense, and I found my calling. My competitive spirit had found an outlet where it was not hampered by the unathletic body that housed it: competitive arguing. I have not been able to find any scholarly text that examines the ways in which mock trial teams themselves adhere to gender-normative patterns. I believe that this thesiswill be invaluable to an understanding of how gender roles are performed in the legal profession

L'appréhension sociale de la nature ne se fait pas sans règles comme toute intervention humaine ne peut être que normative. La Conférence de Sudbury dont cet ouvrage rend compte a démontré la plurinormativité de la relation à la nature qui se retrouve dans la superposition et le conflit des règles, des lois, des habitus... Les spécialistes réunis lors de cette conférence s'entendent à dire que la destruction de la planète par l'homme doit cesser et qu'il faut agir hors des grandes institutions mondiales en redonnant aux populations locales la maîtrise de leur environnement immédiat par l'éducation et la cogestion afin de préserver les habitats et leurs habitants pour que les générations futures puissent en jouir. / Édité par Raoul Etongué Mayer et François-Xavier Ribordy. Textes présentés lors d'un colloque tenu à l'Université Laurentienne les 5 et 6 août 1998. Conception de la page couverture et endos réalisée par Julie Henri. / SSHRCC/CRSH, ACFAS, AUPELF-UREF-FICU, MNR/MRN, le rectorat et le vice-rectorat de l'Université Laurentienne, le vice-rectorat aux affaires francophones, le décanat des sciences sociales et Patrimoine Canada

The existence or abolishment of adultery has been a dispute in academic circles for a long time. Though, it is permissible under the Constitution, according to the Constitutional Interpretation 554. However, many domestic law scholars and feminists argue that adultery should allow to be decriminalized from the perspectives of proportional principle, balance of criminal law¡¦s interest and comparative legal institution. This dissertation analyses the crime of adultery in current days via a newly emerging research approach, namely legal economics. To begin with, I clarify and confirm the legal interests in which marriage and family institutions are involved, that is to say the right of family, whom the crime of adultery in criminal law protects. Taking them as a analysis benchmark, and apply them to be the criterion on the assessment of crime of adultery thereafter. Then, use the concepts of demand, cost and benefit as tools, analyze the feasors and victim of adultery comparatively on the basis of the practice of current prosecution and judgement. The analysis shows that the norms of current crime of adultery couldn¡¦t objectively prevent it from happening. Moreover, it is a burden for the victim wife to start a lawsuit. The advantages obtained from criminal lawsuit could simply be retrieved from claim right in civil code. Besides, lawsuit started by victim wife always lead to family disharmony which at the same time contradicts the benefit of family right entitled by the crime itself. It infers that the crime of adultery should be discriminalized. During the research process, I also analyze the philosophical essence and theory of legal economics, which affirm the legitimate application of economics on law research. Will it lack protection on marriage and family institution after crime of adultery being discriminalized? The article considers this in a view of basic rights protection in the Constitution. How could we fullfil the protection through the law of a lower-level after the crime of adultery being recognized as the protection of family right, which at the same time the basic right the Constitution protects? After summarizing perspectives of theory and practice could be divided to the one that involves the conclusion of marriage, the termination of freedom and monogamy as a narrow interpretation of family right, and nurturing teenagers and protecting family members as broad interpretation on the other. Thus, the way of legalization should be different due to the distinction of broad and narrow family right. As to the narrow family right, it should focus on protection of the right of freedom. In addition, according to the rigidity of criminal law, especially being reviewed by proportional principle, there should be no need to limit the execution of freedom right, when it involves adultery, a stronger behavior in ethical level. Therefore, the existence of crime of adultery is unnecessary. There is a necessity that the Constitution Interpretation 554 needs to be reviewed. However, as far as the broad interpretation of family right is concerned, the criminal law couldn¡¦t force people to accomplish certain do¡¦s and don¡¦ts if it makes great damages to human dignity or jeopardizes the continuity of personality and family.

This thesis takes as its starting point the proposition that the restricted development of law centres in the United Kingdom has been a result of the exercise of power by the legal profession. This was based on the evidence of the legal profession's influence on the initial development of public legal services policy and the profession's active opposition to the emergence of the first law centres in the United Kingdom. However, law centres remained on the margins of public legal services policy, despite the retreat of the profession from its original position. Thus, it was suggested that the key issue was not simply the power of the profession, but also the power of the dominant paradigms of legal practice, legal needs and legal services. This is reflected in the private practice and casework orientation of the legal aid system. Law centres challenge the dominant paradigms in many ways. They offer a multi-faceted approach to the resolution of the legal and socio-economic problems of the poor and do so in a not-for-profit, community-controlled and often collectivist context. Through quantitative and qualitative techniques employed in a multiple case study setting, this study sought to test the 'power hypothesis' empirically. Focusing on all of the law centres operating at any time between 1974 and 1997 in Strathclyde and the West Midlands, detailed accounts of significant events and periods in each centre's birth, life and, where appropriate, death were constructed. The thesis provides for the first time a social historical narrative of the development of law centres in these two locations. These accounts reveal that the profession and the dominant paradigms have had an impact on law centres in many significant ways. However, several of the greatest difficulties faced by law centres cannot be explained by reference to this conceptual framework. Accordingly, the thesis concludes that a wider theoretical framework is required to explain the development of law centres. This wider framework must draw on several existing traditions. It should recognise the importance of community, local and ethnic politics; social exclusion and ethnicity; and organisational and change management. However, it must also recognise the power of the legal profession and the dominant paradigms, as the additional challenges this brings distinguish the experience of law centres from that of other radical, community organisations.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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