Legal informatics
The legal computer science is an interdisciplinary science and is concerned as the study of the conditions, possibilities and consequences of computer science in the law with the mutual relations of law and computer science.
Today is ( etc. depending on the extent and computer science law, information technology or IT for short - law) distinction between the law in general computer science in the strict sense (ins ) and the right to information. The legal computer science i.e.S. this includes the information-theoretical aspects and is predominantly associated with the computer science. It deals with the use of instruments and methods of computer science in the law, ranging from the support of legal aid activities, such as office management systems and legal information systems, to attempt a more comprehensive automation of law such as decision support systems, expert systems or applications of artificial intelligence in law.
The Information Law or IT law, however, deals with the multiple from the the use of new information and communication technologies resulting legal issues as they arise, etc. about the data protection law, intellectual property law, and is therefore attributable to the law. The concept and theory development and in particular the definition of legal computer science in the narrow sense and information law, however, are still unclear and incomplete.
The beginnings
Your starting point took the right computer science in the German-speaking area in the early considerations for managing automation, relax from the late 1950s to the question of the possible use of " calculating machine " in law and the state and therefore from today's perspective, with a branch of legal computer science. The first such German -language scholarly publication seems to those of Karl Zeidler entitled On the mechanization of Management from 1959 to be. High popularity reached even the early work of Herbert Fiedler as those of the calculating machine as an aid to the application of the law of 1962 or the Habilitationsschrift right and automation in the public administration of Niklas Luhmann from the year 1966. Other important representatives of early beginnings of a legal computer science among many others, in particular Wilhelm Steinmueller, Spiros Simitis, Robert Svoboda, and Hans Peter Bull to call in regard to the legal logic in particular Ulrich Klug, Lothar Philipps or Ota Weinberger.
The concept of legal computer science in itself is most likely due to the French lawyers Lucien flour, of the term informatique juridique the application of calculating machines to the law proposed in 1958.
The attempt at a theory and concept formation
A stronger theoretical study of the data processing in law and government took place only at the beginning of the 1970s. In particular, Herbert Fiedler and Wilhelm Müller stone - of the latter was taken at the 1970 published first German-language textbook on computer science right - will be charged at this time entitled to the formation of an independent discipline. With his textbook Wilhelmstein Müller coined at the same time the concept of legal computer science to refer to this new discipline. Also Fritjof detention speaks of a new discipline, but referred to it as before, Spiros Simitis, Dieter Suhr or Adalbert Podlech as legal cybernetics.
As an object of legal computer science Wilhelmstein Müller considers the inter-relationships of IT and law and he defines it from system-theoretical position as " the study of the conditions, possibilities and consequences of IT in law." Dieserart led Steinmueller the information-theoretical aspects concerning the practical use of computers in the law ( eg legal information systems, management automation, automated legal decision-making, support for legal planning and training, etc.), with the legal aspects that arise when using the computer in the right, under the umbrella of computer science as a legal problem science.
Herbert Fiedler preferred the concept of legal computer science whose point he clusters in practical data processing, and which he defined as "the structure theory of data processing in law and the state ." He is thus based legal computer science methodology to the formal sciences (formal logic, mathematics ), the computer science, however, does not consider this as a purely formal science and does not exclude a description in natural language. The differences resulting from the new information technologies law issues, summarizes Fiedler - as assigned to the dogma of the right - the first time under the concept of information law together. At least in the 1990s Fiedler are, however, on the idea of a unified mathematical- structural method and argues for a stronger interdisciplinary collaboration and in this sense for a " legal integration discipline computer science " with integrated Disciplines law and computer science. By combining the right computer science in the strict sense ( the information-theoretical part) and the right computer science in a broader sense ( right to information ) should be law and computer science no longer regard each other as auxiliary sciences, but synergistic and for the frequent breakdown in " computer science for Lawyers" and " law for Computer Scientists " go.
Leo Reisinger in turn defined the legal computer science from systems theory as the theory of the structure and function of the legal system in regard to the automation of data processing, Fritjof custody and later Elmar Bund consider the legal computer science as the science of the application of computer science methods to information and decision-making structures in legal system and in the jurisprudence. Maximilian Herberger speaks up today for a methodical separation and for a consideration of the right computer science as applications of computer science in the legal instruments in the self- understanding of other dash computer sciences (economics computer science, medicine, computer science, etc.). The same applies to Wolfgang Kilian, which clearly assigns the right computer science of applied computer science, they are defined as an analysis and assessment of the requirements, applications and consequences of information technology law and acknowledges the need for interdisciplinary and cross-border cooperation of lawyers, computer scientists and economists.
The legal computer science i.e.S. and the right to information
Although the contents, methods and objectives of legal computer science remain somewhat in the dark about the legal computer science in the German speaking today on the basis of Wilhelmstein Müller (see above), usually described as an interdisciplinary science that deals with the interrelation of law and computer science. In addition, introduced by Herbert Fiedler pair of terms right computer science and information law seems since the 1990s (see above ) had the biggest enforce.
Under the law computer science in the narrow sense ( in the narrow sense ) is therefore now regularly the information-theoretic component of the right computer science understood, which in turn are divided roughly into legal documentation and knowledge management, standard setting and standard application or implementation of law (including legal, expert systems, and applications of artificial intelligence in law), can be divided workplace support and legal learning and training systems. But research into the social, political and economic development of the information and knowledge society is often, but not always the right computer science ieS slammed. As the legal computer science i.e.S. in the formalization of legal language encounters insurmountable limits, also it now appears next to the disciplines of law and computer science, the integration of computer science in the law hitherto neglected branch of linguistics and computational linguistics in particular the interface between linguistics and computer science required.
But the content of the information law a legal computer science in a broader sense, there is fundamental disagreement. Depending on the focus here is also of computer science, law, computer law, information technology law ( IT law ), Information and Communication Technology Law ( ICT law), law of new media, Internet Law ( Cyberlaw ), etc. mentioned. Under the Information Law and its related terms, the diverse arising from the use of modern information and communication technology law issues are regularly gathered, which it presents itself as a so-called cross-sectional discipline that many areas of law such as the data protection law, intellectual property law, telecommunications law, the computer - criminal law, which includes e-commerce law, etc.. While the right to information is absolutely regarded by some as a distinct discipline over or alongside the traditional sub-disciplines, it is dismissed by others as unsystematic legal potpourris. Thomas Hoeren turn makes the right to information on the key question determines how, to whom, when and why exclusive rights are assigned to information and presents in a row the intellectual property rights at the center. Despite these inconsistencies, the right to information law has computer science in the narrow sense de facto expired the rank and is occasionally even called the progressive development or the modern form of legal computer science. But as with the administrative computer science computer science the law resigns today.
Legal computer science - computer science management - e -Government
The legal computer science and management computer science have common roots in the early aspirations of the use of computer science in law and the state in the 1960s ( see above). Towards the end of the 1970s established itself in the German speaking part of the concept of management for computer science, such as Heino Kaack puts it, " science of information technology -based design of administrative action." The management computer science today is sometimes attributed to the economic computer science, the correct way is to fulfill important interface functions between the fields of computer science, management science, politics, economics and law probably a multidisciplinary field of research in which the economic computer science, the Public Management and the legal computer science. With the increased usage of the Internet in the 1990s, the concept of management computer science has been widely replaced by the more modern term usually used synonymously of e-government.
The current position of the law computer science i.e.S.
The legal computer science today shows very good progress in the areas of process automation, bulk operations, and ( isolated ) problem-specific applications. Through its tougher awareness, it also has potential to uncover inconsistencies, contradictions, or unequal treatment in law. After the first euphoric expectations of the legal computer science and their ambitious projects for the automation of legal decision-making in the 1970s and 1980s, however, introduced at the beginning of the 1990s, a certain disappointment and disillusionment. Is already proving to the formalization of general knowledge and natural language as extremely problematic, so this is even more true for the formalization of complex legal language and the underlying structural legal knowledge. Critical prove particularly the increasing complexity in the legal, open and vague legal terms, rating decisions, the variability and dynamics of language and law, the divergence of formal model and non-formal reality, as well as the formalization of a comprehensive knowledge of the world, in which the right knowledge is embedded.
This along with the fact that a single conceptual and related to theories of a discipline is computer science right up to now not succeeded, ultimately led to a certain disorientation of legal computer science. This could be due not least to the lack of willingness to interdisciplinarity and the consequent dispute whether the localization of computer science discipline right in law or computer science. As a result, the legal computer science leads as compared to the economic computer science today an orchid specialist existence and must also withdraw behind the right to information and the management of computer science.
Other countries
The problem of concept and theory of legal computer science consists not only in German-speaking countries. Unlike other dash computer sciences has not prevailed in English, the term Legal Informatics and is itself hardly used in English-speaking countries. Well, however, finds the designation Legal Informatics for the English versions another language speaking bodies or institutions use. Developed in the 1960s and later spread designation "Computers and Law", as for example the renowned Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law NRCCL ( Norwegian: Senter for rettsinformatikk ) still leads at the University of Oslo today, holds similar pitfalls as those of the legal computer science and has been replaced more and more by modern and the respective research area more precisely descriptive terminology. So today is of Legal Aspects of Computing, IT Law, ICT Law, Cyberlaw, Internet Law, Artificial Intelligence and Law (short: AI and Law ) and many other variants more talk.
Relevant conferences
Legal computer science i.e.S.
- International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law ICAIL ( biannual )
- Jurix, The Foundation for Legal Knowledge Based Systems ( annual)
- International Law Symposium IRIS computer science, University of Salzburg
- List other relevant conferences