MISLA²: A System to Information Retrieval in Labour Lawsuits using Legal Ontologies and Regular Expressions

Electronic Legal Proceedings are a worldwide legal phenomena, allowing the use of computerized systems for the creation and monitoring of procedural acts in the most diverse legal bodies. On one hand, it allows greater transparency in the conduct of procedural acts, on the other, it has contributed to the bottleneck of open but unresolved lawsuits each year. Nowadays, Information Retrieval to automate the processing of these procedural objects is at the forefront of computer systems for Law. In this study, we present MISLA2, a system to retrieve orders and preliminaries from judicial labour sentences through ontological models built from previous cases. Instead of tied and difficult-to-maintain domain specification models, we demonstrate how light ontologies, in conjunction with regular expressions for extracting significant portions of the text, can achieve the desired results. In addition, empirical experiments carried out with real labour lawsuits evidence that results are quite promising.

Can Visual Design Provide Legal Transparency? The Challenges for Successful Implementation of Icons for Data Protection

Design is a key player in the future of data privacy and data protection. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) established by the European Union aims to rebalance the information asymmetry between the organizations that process personal data and the individuals to which that data refers. Machine-readable, standardized icons that present a “meaningful overview of the intended processing” are suggested by the law as a tool to enhance the transparency of information addressed to data subjects. However, no specific guidelines have been provided, and studies on privacy iconography are very few. This article describes research conducted on the creation and evaluation of icons representing data protection concepts. First, we introduce the methodology used to design the Data Protection Icon Set (DaPIS): participatory design methods combined with legal ontologies and machine-readable representations. Second, we discuss some of the challenges that have been faced in the development and evaluation of DaPIS and similar icon sets. Third, we provide some tentative responses and indicate a way forward for evaluation of the effectiveness of privacy icons and their widespread adoption.

Chthonic Legal Traditions: A Standpoint Legal Research Paradigm for Comparative Analysis on Australian Indigenous Legal Orders

In contemporary comparative legal scholarship, it is no longer controversial to assert the relevance of investigations into chthonic legal orders; however, there is a significant divergence on how they should be undertaken. The paper takes in consideration the Australian chthonic legal orders and argues that their investigations by non-Indigenous researchers need to be undertaken acknowledging an Indigenous epistemological approach to research, with methodological frameworks that, consistent with the principles of an Indigenous standpoint theory, aim to develop a legal standpoint research paradigm informed by Indigenous legal ontologies, epistemic theories and research practices. The research paradigm so elaborated is justified by the necessity of devising new epistemological models to guide understandings—and theoretical elaboration—of Australian Indigenous orders which are consistent and coherent with their ontological, epistemological and axiological universe.