The Role of Semantics in Legal Expert Systems and Legal Reasoning

The consensus among legal philosophers is probably that rule-based legal expert systems leave much to be desired as aids in legal decision-making. Why? What can we do about it? A bureaucrat administering some set of complex rules will ascertain the facts and apply the rules to them in order to discover their consequences for the case in hand. This process of deductive reasoning is characteristically bureaucratic.' If the client or subject of the decision, after he has checked the deductions, does not like the apparent consequences of the rules, he will question their interpretation. This is not a deductive process. He will examine the meanings of the words in the rules and those used to characterise his case, looking for adjustments that lead to a more favourable decision.