Calibrating Legal Judgments

The purpose of the paper is to indicate in which way modern digital information systems influence the range of legal sources and to assess whether such changes improve the quality of judgements and other legal decisions. The paper uses examples from Danish law but does not in any detail describe specific information systems. It takes a more general approach. At the beginning the concept of a legal source is briefly discussed and it is considered why these sources are used. Preconditions for their usage are mainly availability and comprehensibility. With this background changes with respect to general legal rules, judicial and administrative decisions in national law are discussed with emphasis on the general considerations that are made in connection with developing information systems. Next developments in connection with EU law, international law and foreign law are considered and the importance of the Internet is emphasized. At the end it is briefly considered whether the different changes will lead to an improved legal system, to better decisions. This is a possibility but only if the potential of the information society is utilized.

This critical discourse analysis examines the construction of an “appropriate” education by Florida administrative law judges in their special education final orders over time. The results indicate that despite each child being different, the construction of an appropriate education was uniform within the given time periods. Prior to the Rowley decision, the administrative law judges utilized their own judgment in constructing an appropriate education. This construction was based on whether or not the proposed Individualized Education Program was designed to meet the needs of the child. Each final order avoided discussing the law in detail, credibility, deference, or burden of proof. The results indicate that after Rowley and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004), the Rowley decision established an epistemic hierarchy. It gave deference to school districts—not parents—as experts. Additionally, after Rowley and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the power of an administrative law judge to construct an appropriate education was constrained by the discourse in the Rowley decision. Throughout all three time periods, the administrative law judges all emphasized that students were not entitled to the best education possible.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Stigma and Denial in Social Security Disability Hearings

The deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in legal document management has emerged as a significant development within the broader digitalization of public administration and judicial systems. In Vietnam, the rapid growth of digital legal databases — encompassing court judgments, legislative instruments, administrative decisions, and regulatory circulars — has created institutional demand for automated tools capable of classifying and retrieving legal documents with accuracy and consistency. This article examines the legal implications of applying AI-based text classification technology to Vietnamese legal documents, with particular attention to the normative framework governing electronic records management, judicial administration, and data governance. Drawing on a qualitative legal analysis of the Law on Electronic Transactions 2023, the Law on Archives 2024, the Law on Cybersecurity 2018, the Civil Procedure Code 2015, and related implementing instruments, the study identifies critical regulatory gaps that limit the lawful and reliable deployment of automated legal classification systems within Vietnamese courts and public administration bodies. The findings indicate that: (i) Vietnam's current legal framework does not explicitly address the use of AI in judicial document processing, creating uncertainty regarding the legal status of AI-assisted decisions; (ii) existing data governance instruments are insufficient to ensure the accuracy, transparency, and accountability of automated classification outcomes in the legal domain; and (iii) the absence of mandatory audit and human oversight requirements exposes AI-classified legal documents to evidentiary and due process challenges. A series of legislative and institutional recommendations are proposed to establish a coherent regulatory foundation for AI-assisted legal document management in Vietnam, drawing on comparative experience from the European Union's AI Act and relevant ASEAN digital governance frameworks.

Most legal decision support systems have generally operated in domains with well-understood norms. Hence reasoning has been represented by a combination of rule-based and case-based reasoning. However, we analyse legal domains in which decision makers are allowed a significant amount of discretion. We argue that if the domain is bounded, and a sufficient number of commonplace cases exist, then the domain can be modelled using Knowledge Discovery from Databases techniques. Whilst we focus upon legal principles for decision making in discretionary legal domains, our goal is to develop theory for constructing legal decision support systems. Our jurisprudential theory is hence applied to a practical legal domain - namely the distribution of marital property following divorce in Australia. We conclude by discussing how we can maintain, update and evaluate the quality of the advice offered by our legal decision support systems.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has overturned a decision by one of its administrative law judges, which held that the agency lacked power to stop patent owners from deceptively inducing state regulatory agencies to adopt standards subject to patent protection. The charge in controversy was that the Union Oil Company of California (Unocal) violated antitrust laws by deceiving the California Air Resources Board (CARB). This alleged misconduct occurred in regulatory proceedings for setting a gasoline content standard to lessen air pollution. The FTC’s administrative law judge had ruled the FTC had no regulatory power over conduct occurring in such government proceedings, and dismissed the charges without a factual trial of the allegations. This led to an appeal to the five-commissioner FTC, which unanimously reversed the initial decision. The effect of the reversal is to reinstate the proceeding against Unocal for a determination as to whether it had committed the alleged fraud on CARB concerning patents.

A significant form of civil justice is administrative hearings, used to resolve individual disputes in the provision of government welfare benefits. Drawing from ethnographic observations, analysis of recorded transcripts of the hearings, and interviews with administrative law judges in the United States, we examine two contrasting approaches to judging, one a ‘bureaucratic’ approach which replicates the style of decision‐making on the front lines, and the other an ‘adjudicatory’ approach which relies on the norms and conventions of judicial decision making. To understand how each approach manifests in the hearing room, we use the methodology of conversation analysis to compare and contrast the different verbal strategies and techniques that characterize each approach. To understand why a judge may choose one approach over another we explore how judges construct their professional identity and manage the tasks of judging.

Bureaucratic Power and the Rule of Law Nicholas R. Parrillo (bio) Daniel R. Ernst. Tocqueville’s Nightmare: The Administrative State Emerges in America, 1900–1940. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2014. 226pp. Notes and index. $39.95. Daniel Ernst’s book is about the emergence of the administrative state in America, and particularly the relationship between that state’s emergence and the law—law being defined in terms of the judiciary, the legal profession, and the notion that courts and their processes constitute the ideal for governmental decision making in a liberal society. The relationship of the American administrative state to the law is a fraught one. In one prevalent view, courts are essentially distinct from, and in tension with, governmental bureaucratic agencies. Courts approach problems in an essentially passive and narrow way, for they act only in particularized suits between specific parties, in which their job is to vindicate the rights of those parties. By contrast, a governmental agency is charged with carrying out a program (such as keeping drugs safe, or keeping investors informed), which it must do across a whole industry or population, in a comprehensive and proactive way. Courts are staffed by judges who know legal procedure and legal reasoning but are generalists when it comes to any particular substantive field. By contrast, governmental bureaucrats are experts in their substantive fields (medical science, economics, etc.). The judge is meant to be independent, in order to decide impartially between the parties. By contrast, the bureaucrat is meant to be under managerial control, in order to implement the agency’s program. Given all these tensions, it is no surprise that a long line of historical scholarship on American government presents courts as essentially conservative actors who have resisted, obstructed, and distorted the development of America’s regulatory and welfare state.1 The tension between law and government administration is sharpest when an agency makes a decision adverse to an individual or business, prompting the individual or business to sue the agency, claiming that the decision violated some legal standard, such as the Constitution, a legislative act, or the common law. Courts have been open to such suits, in at least some circumstances, throughout U.S. history, but the nature and prevalence of the suits [End Page 544] have changed over time. From the founding through the nineteenth century, courts’ receptivity to such claims was, to use Jerry Mashaw’s term, bipolar, in the sense of swinging between two poles. For some claims, such as those involving a common-law property right, courts were willing to review the agency’s decision de novo; that is, the judge would conduct a complete “do-over” of the official’s decision himself, with no deference to the government. For all other claims, courts would not review the agency’s decision at all. Claims entitled to de novo treatment were the exception rather than the rule, especially as bureaucratic activity proliferated, and therefore most bureaucratic acts were not subject to judges’ interference.2 Then, circa 1900, as legislatures’ penchant for empowering bureaucrats reached new heights, courts opened themselves to lawsuits on a wider range of bureaucratic acts. But the courts realized that they could not feasibly re-do so many administrative decisions, so they simultaneously began experimenting with ways of offering less than a complete do-over in each individual suit.3 Today, these kinds of lawsuits have become widely available—it is now presumed that you can sue a federal agency for any wrong it does to you—but a court that hears such a suit will not re-do all of the agency’s work. Instead, it will defer to the agency on many of the issues in the dispute, much the way an appellate court would treat a trial court. The official basis for this settlement between courts and agencies—and between law and bureaucratic power—is the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. Yet a long line of scholarship suggests that this Act did little more than ratify practices that had already become prevalent by the time it was passed.4 In other words, courts and agencies themselves reached an enduring modus vivendi sometime after 1900 but before 1946...

Courts now not only have social media policies to control social media use in the courtroom, but are using social media (particularly Twitter) to publish judgments and court-related information. Now that social media gives everyone equal and inexpensive access to broadcast communication platforms of international scope and impact, courts are finding that interactive communication with court “users” is changing both the law and the way that judges interact with the public. The legal, ethical and case management impacts of changes in court communication and development of the law are, however, only a small part of the profound changes social media may have on the legal system and the role of the judge. This discussion paper examines the future of judges in a social media world where the “like” button, and not just the legislature or the appellate courts, may play an increasingly powerful role in shaping both the content of the law and the way in which judges perform their role in the legal system.

Although administrative hearings are not formal litigation, the process often resembles traditional adversarial adjudication. There are two parties, one has the burden of proof, both present evidence, and there is a ruling on the legal merits. Substantively, the hearing focuses on eligibility for benefits. Procedurally, the hearing runs like traditional courtroom litigation. Based on direct observation of 45 unemployment insurance claims and interviews with administrative law judges (ALJs), I find ALJs behave differently when there is no legal counsel present. Whereas the law that governs the hearing remains the same, the process for pro se claimants is substantively different.

The author argues that simple constructive dilemma is a valuable argument form for reasoning under relative conditions of uncertainty. When applied to legal argument this value of simple constructive dilemma is shown in its political, strategic, rhetorical, and especially economic, uses by lawyers and judges. After considering some examples of the use of the form by trial lawyers, the author gives examples of the more interesting use of the form by appellate courts. Research into the use of simple constructive dilemma by appellate courts helps us to understand how those courts distribute judicial resources. It also helps us to understand the political role of the appellate courts with respect to the doctrine of the separation of powers. Given some of the specific examples of legal reasoning used by the appellate courts presented in this article, and given the discussion of the doctrine of precedent, the article’s focus is on common law legal systems of the Anglo-American-type.

The paper aims to present the realisation of two procedural principles – the right to good administration and the right to legal remedy – regulated also in the Fundamental Law of Hungary, which entered into force on 1st January 2012. The right to legal remedy has been a constitutional principle since the change of regime (in 1989) and the right to good administration has been constitutionally named only by the Fundamental Law of Hungary. The actuality of the paper is the fact that in Hungary from the 1st of January 2018 completely new codes regulate the general public administrative procedures and the administrative justice. Based on these Acts, a new legal remedy system has been introduced regarding administrative decisions in which the judicial review procedures became – instead of the internal administrative appeal procedures – in most of the cases the firstly used legal remedy possibility regarding administrative decisions. After a short overview of the new legal remedy system which has been introduced regarding administrative decisions, the paper presents the constitutional basis of the right to good administration and the right to legal remedy. Finally, we analyse in detail the latest and most relevant decisions of the Constitutional Court of Hungary and some cases of the Curia of Hungary about the practice of the direct enforcement of the constitutional principles: the right to good administration and the right to legal remedy regarding administrative decisions.

The article addresses the imperative of ensuring consistency in legal application through the mandatory legal conclusions of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, a significant aspect in light of ongoing judicial reform. The introductory section highlights the importance of judicial practice stability as a cornerstone of legal certainty and the rule of law in a democratic state. The author examines the Supreme Court’s enhanced role following the 2016 amendments to the Constitution and the Law on the Judiciary and the Status of Judges, which positioned the Supreme Court as the sole cassation instance. This has allowed the Supreme Court to establish binding legal conclusions for lower courts, aiding in the elimination of legal inconsistencies and fostering predictability in judicial decisions. In addition to legal aspects, the article explores theoretical and practical challenges associated with the binding nature of legal conclusions. The author notes the advantages of a unified approach in legal application while also addressing potential risks to judicial independence, which could limit judges’ ability to interpret the law according to the case’s unique circumstances. An important facet is the comparative analysis of other countries’ experiences in ensuring uniform judicial practice, such as precedent-based decisions in the United Kingdom or normative interpretation in continental law systems. Ukraine is striving to identify an optimal approach that achieves legal certainty while allowing flexibility in judicial practice. Through the research, the author proposes ways to improve the legislative regulation of binding legal conclusions by analyzing their impact on judicial practice and drawing on the experience of European nations. The benefits and drawbacks of mandatory legal conclusions are discussed, particularly their role in reinforcing legal order and ensuring equality before the law. The analysis also includes mechanisms allowing the Supreme Court to adjust its legal positions in response to new circumstances, enhancing the legal system’s efficiency and public trust in justice. The article concludes with recommendations emphasizing the need for unity in legal application as the foundation for legal system stability and the further enhancement of institutional independence within the judiciary to uphold fair justice.

As the sophistication and use of technology increases, communication through technology becomes more common, leading to the increasing use of emojis. In turn, this has led to an increase of emojis being used as evidence in court, with little guidance of how they can be interpreted within the law. This study examines the ways judges perceive emojis in court, especially when they are used as evidence. Through a grounded theory qualitative study, semi-structured interviews of judges throughout the Southwest region of the United States were conducted and analyzed according to Charmaz grounded theory guidelines (Charmaz, 2006) to determine judges’ perceptions of the use of emojis in court as evidence. This seeks to determine how emojis are used within the court system as they can carry and convey many different meanings to different people. This study found that many judges find it necessary to have context with emojis for the purposes of interpretation by the jury, but it is not necessary for special instructions to be made in regards to emojis. Additionally, this study found other aspects of trial including jury selection and the appellate court are being affected by the increasing usage of emojis as evidence due to their highly subjective nature. Further research is needed to assess the broader implications of advancements in technology on the legal system.

Introduction A basic understanding of the Indian legal and criminal justice systems is essential for comprehending the subsequent chapters of this book. Hence, in this Chapter, I provide a brief introduction to the Indian criminal justice system. I discuss, among other things, the hierarchy of courts, pre-trial and trial processes, and the appellate process. The Legal System The Constitution of India provides for a federal system, in which legislative powers are divided between the central, state and local governments. Article 246 read with Schedule VII to the Constitution, demarcates legislative powers between the centre and the states. Schedule VII consists of three lists – the ‘Union List’ (List I), the ‘State List’ (List II), and the ‘Concurrent List’ (List III). Matters enumerated in the Union and State Lists are within the exclusive legislative competence of the Union Parliament and State Legislatures, respectively. Both the Parliament and State Legislatures are competent to legislate on matters in the Concurrent List. However, in the event of repugnancy between a state and a central law, the central law prevails to the extent of repugnancy. Criminal law and criminal procedure find a place in the Concurrent List, whereas police and prisons are in the State List. The Indian judiciary is unitary in nature, with courts having the power to adjudicate on both central and state laws – there is no separate federal and state judiciary in this respect. The Supreme Court of India sits at the apex of the judicial system. Additionally, each state has its own High Court, although Parliament has the power to establish a common High Court for two or more states. High Courts are at the apex of the state judiciary, below which are a set of subordinate courts in the districts. One major distinction between India and other common law countries is that India does not follow the jury system. Trials in serious criminal cases are generally conducted only in district courts, by judges sitting individually. The High Courts and the Supreme Court are appellate courts. Judges in the Supreme Court and the High Courts generally sit in panels of two or more (depending on the nature of the case) and do not sit en banc .