Methodology

UNIBO is composed by 4 groups of experts: philosophy of law, legal informatics, computation linguistics and experts in human computer interaction. UNIBO is the pivot unit that facilitates all the other research units to integrate their contributions.

The WP1 is conducted by all the partners. In WP2 we contribute to the legal theory analysis under the philosophy of law perspective, investigating the implications of the codification of the law using algorithmic law. This task is conducted with the contribution of LUISS for the parliamentary and constitutional aspects, and UNITO for the philosophical speculations. The aim is to build a theoretical framework capable of supporting the AI and other non-textual serialization of the norms. We will start with the state-of-the-art analysis and by modelling two use-cases: the Italian and European parliamentary law- making processes, about for instance “Emergency Law Responses to Covid-19”.

In WP3 we contribute with the analysis of symbolic (LegalRuleML, Akoma Ntoso) and non-symbolic AI applicable in legal drafting tasks (including multilingualism and translation) for managing the law-making process. We also use legal ontologies, XML serialization of the norms and legal reasoning. NLP tools (like bots), legal knowledge extraction from text, generation of the text from small data are conducted by UNIBO and UNIVR.
In WP4 we investigate with UNIVR HCI and Legal design solutions for creating innovative normative modelization beyond the text to support the legal drafting activity, a better communication with citizens and to help the practitioners.

UNIBO can count on cooperation with INFN and CINECA that manage 70% of supercomputing power in Italy. This permits us to use very special equipment for performing our prototypes (big data & AI algorithms). In the project several PhD students from the LAST-JD International PhD programme managed jointly with UNITO are involved.

LUISS engages in 4 main tasks related to WP2 with UNIBO and UNITO:

1. it analyses the constitutional and parliamentary law compatibility of the robotisation of the law-making process. It investigates the legal implications of the production of Law through code and textual language. The focus of analysis primarily covers Italian and European law;

2. it investigates the boundaries of the legal drafting simplification that could be made with the use of AI and XML-standards, including the amendment management and the preservation of democratic principles and constitutional rights;

3. it investigates better regulation as better communication by focusing on the use- case of Italian Parliament. LUISS will define this use-case with UNIVR and UNIBO about the “Emergency Law Responses to Covid-19”;

4. it will transfer part of the know-how developed in the project into the Executive programme in Legislative drafting, already active in the framework of the LUISS School of Law.

The research outputs of the project shall be included in the Programme with additional modules focusing on constitutional advice to legislation, on multi-lingual drafting. In addition, the community of Alumni of the Executive Programme, consisting of advisors, lawyers and drafting staff in the Italian Parliament and in lobbying societies will offer a wide basis for the dissemination of the findings of the research.

The aim will be to provide a general legal framework for eLegal systems, taking into account today’s state of the art in legal philosophy vis-à-vis the challenges of the current technological revolution, i.e. the “fourth revolution,” such as the normative issues of legal design and legal automation brought forth by the digital dimension of current legal systems. The aim is threefold to examine whether traditional approaches of philosophy of law are good enough to tackle the challenges of ‘Law as Platform’ in the infosphere, including the challenge of smart contract and blockchain where UNITO has several projects of excellences (https://blockchain.di.unito.it/projects/) in which the Law Department is involved. In future UNITO will also involve the Department of Computer Science in case the project will be funded. We examine three viewpoints:

1. epistemological and normative advantages and drawbacks;

2. normative issues of legal compliance and enforcement by design;

3. ethical and legal issues of autonomy, accountability, explainability, and transparency.

To formulate a theoretical framework for digital legal systems, in which the manifold applications of ‘Law as Platform’ shall be consistent with the rule of law, fundamental rights, and tenets of the democratic society. The outputs of this WP2 activity are particular important as an input for the WP3 and WP4 in order to avoid black-box technology and to develop by-design the digital solutions.

The Unit will provide support for the development of the project, sharing with the other units information about (i) the state of the art in philosophy of law as regards the normative impact of the “fourth revolution,” e.g. issues of legal access to, and control and protection over, information in the ‘infosphere’; (ii) epistemological and normative concerns on the use of legal design and automation; (iii) a theoretical framework for ‘Law as Platform.’ Accordingly, the Unit will collaborate in the production of research papers with the other units of the project, and in the dissemination of the theoretical results.

The UNIVR is a Department of Computer Science and it is a fundamental part of the project contributing in three main directions:

1. in the WP3 with AI symbolic analysis of the normative aspects using formal logic modelling (LegalRuleML & legal reasoning). The unit will hire, with the funds of the project, new post-doc researchers to dedicate to the analysis of the legislative documents and the connected amendments using the inputs coming from LUISS and UNIBO;

2. modelling and simplifying the legislative process to figure out a new modality of work fostering the AI and the new technologies with a specific investigation on simulation techniques;

3. helping in WP4 the modelling of legal design solution using Web technologies competences and avoiding the black-box problem that UNITO will analyse.

This unit will cooperate with the UNIBO computer science staff in order to perform the main technological tasks in WP3 and WP4 concerning the law-making process digital transformation and the human computer interaction dialogue, including the usage of visual languages, enabling an optimal integration with the parliamentary procedures and the digital simplification.