{"id":63,"date":"2009-09-03T12:07:48","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T17:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/2009\/09\/03\/if-the-mountain-will-not-come-to-the-prophet-the-prophet-will-go-to-the-mountain\/"},"modified":"2009-09-03T12:07:48","modified_gmt":"2009-09-03T17:07:48","slug":"if-the-mountain-will-not-come-to-the-prophet-the-prophet-will-go-to-the-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/2009\/09\/03\/if-the-mountain-will-not-come-to-the-prophet-the-prophet-will-go-to-the-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"If the mountain will not come to the prophet, the prophet will go to the mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within the field of legal informatics, discussions often focus on the technical and methodological questions of access to legal information. The topics can range from classification of legal documents<\/a> to conceptual retrieval methods<\/a> and Automatic Detection of Argumentation in Legal Cases<\/a>. Researchers and businesses try to increase both precision and recall in order to improve search results for lawyers, while public administrations open up the process of legislating for the benefit of democracy and openness. Where are, however, the benefits for laypersons not familiar with retrieving legal information? Does clustering of legal documents, for example, yield a legal text any more understandable for a citizen?<\/p>\n

To answer these questions, I would like to go back to the beginning, the purpose of law. Unfortunately for us lawyers, law is not created for us, but to serve as the oil that keeps society running smoothly. One can imagine two scenarios to apply the oil: If the motor has not been taken care of sufficiently, some extra greasy oil might be necessary to get it running again (i.e. if all amicable solutions are exhausted, some sort of dispute resolution is required), this would be the retroactive approach. The other possible application is to add enough oil during driving, so the engine will continue running smoothly without any additional boost, in other words trying to avoid disputes, this would be the proactive line of thinking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How can proactive law work for the citizens? The basic assumption would be that in order to avoid disputes, one has to be aware of possible legal risks<\/a> and how to prevent them. In line with the position of the European Union<\/a>, we can further assume that the assessment and evaluation of risks requires relevant information about the legal facts at hand. It is only possible for a citizen to reach a decision regarding, for example, social benefits or certain rights as an employee, if she or he is aware of the various legal rights and obligations as well as possible legal outcomes.<\/p>\n

Having stipulated that legal information is the core requirement for being able to exercise one\u2019s rights as a citizen, the next questions would include which type of information is actually necessary, who should be responsible to communicating it and how it should be provided. These questions I would like to discuss below.\u00a0 That is, we will talk about why, what, who and how.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/h3>\n

\"ignorance\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Before we move on to the main theme at hand on access to legal information, I would like to highlight a few more things about the why. As already mentioned, and as many legal philosophers have noted, law is the clockwork that makes society click. The principle Ignorantia juris neminem excusat (<\/em><\/a>Ignorance of the law is no excuse) is commonly accepted as one of the foundations of modern civilization. But how would we define ignorance in today\u2019s world? What if a citizen has troubles finding the necessary information despite endless efforts? What if she or he, after finding the relevant information, is not able to understand it? Does this mean she or he is still ignorant?<\/p>\n

Public access to legal information is also a question of democracy, because citizens\u2019 insight into politics, governmental work and the lawmaking process is a necessary prerequisite for public trust<\/a> in the legislative body.<\/p>\n

“In shifting from infrastructure to integration and then to transformation, a more holistic framework of connected governance is required. Such a framework recognizes the networking presence of e-government as both an internal driver of transformation within the public sector and an external driver of societal learning and collective adaptation for the jurisdiction as a whole.” (UN e-Government Survey 2008<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this spirit, governments should consider the management of knowledge an increasing importance. “The essence of knowledge management (KM) is to provide strategies to get the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and in the right format.” (UN e-Government Survey 2008<\/a>) What, then, is the right knowledge?<\/p>\n

What?<\/h3>\n

The term legal information<\/em> is as obvious as the word law.<\/em> It is both apparent and imprecise, and yet we use it rather often. Several scholars have tried to define legal information and legal knowledge, inter alia, Peter Wahlgren<\/a> in 1992, Erich Schweighofer<\/a> in 1999, and Robert Richards<\/a> in 2009.<\/p>\n

\"books\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If we consider the term from a layperson\u2019s perspective, one could define it as the data, the facts and figures, that are necessary to solve an issue–one that cannot be handled amicably–between two persons (either legal or physical). In order for a layperson to be able to utilize legal information she or he has to be able to access, read, understand and apply the information.<\/p>\n

The accessing element is one of the tasks that legal information institutes<\/a> fulfill so elegantly. The term “reading” is here to be understood as information that can be grasped either with one\u2019s eyes or ears. The complexity begins when it comes to understanding and applying the information. A layperson might have difficulties understanding and applying the Act on income tax even though the law is accessible and readable.<\/p>\n

Is this information then still legal information if we assume that the word \u201cinformation\u201d means that somebody can receive certain signs and data and use this data meaningful in order to increase her or his knowledge? “Knowledge and information [\u2026] influence in a reciprocal way. Information modifies knowledge and knowledge guides potential use of information.” (Schweighofer)<\/a><\/p>\n

If a layperson does not understand the information provided by official sources, she or he might refer to other information sources, for example by utilizing a Google search. In this case, the question arises how reliable the retrieved information is, however comprehensible. A high ranking in Google search does not automatically relate to high quality of the information even though this might be a common misconception, especially for laypersons not trained in source criticism<\/a>. Here the importance of providing citizens with some basic and comprehensible information becomes apparent.<\/p>\n

This comprehensible information might include more than plain text-based legislation and court decisions. Of interest for the layperson (both in business-consumer as well as government-citizen situations) can furthermore be, inter alia,<\/p>\n