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Editors --- "News, Notes and Reports" [1993] JlLawInfoSci 12; (1993) 4(1) Journal of Law, Information and Science 162

NEWS, NOTES AND REPORTS

14TH INTERNATIONAL DATA PROTECTION AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONERS CONFERENCE (IDPPCC), 27-29 OCTOBER 1992

The 14th international conference of data protection and privacy commissioners was held in Sydney, Australia from 27-29 October, 1992 at the Park Lane Hotel. The conference is an annual event and commenced in 1979 as an informal gathering of privacy regulators from around the world. As the importance of privacy issues, particularly in the developed world, has increased, so too has the number of privacy regulators and meetings have grown from small get-togethers into large formal affairs.

The conference enables information privacy regulators from around the world to share their experience and expertise and to examine the many difficult issues relevant to the protection of privacy in the information age. The Sydney conference was of particular benefit for Australia given both our relative youth in terms of the regulation of privacy and our isolation from the debates of Europe and Scandinavia, which have been the centres of privacy developments over the years. The Sydney conference attracted over 80 delegates from 20 different countries including many of those with national or regional data protection authorities (for example, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand) as well as countries with a general policy interest in the issues (for example, the United States, Japan and Singapore). There was a substantial Australian participation which included the Federal Privacy Commissioner (the host) and staff and representatives of the New South Wales Privacy Committee and the South Australian Privacy Committee as well as academics and government officials.

The 14th IDPPCC represented the first time that the conference had been held in the southern hemisphere and it was a great honour for Australia to be awarded the role of host. The proceedings of the conference were officially opened by the then federal Minister for Justice, Senator Michael Tate, who himself has a long-standing association with privacy issues in Australia, having been involved with the drafting and establishment of the Privacy Act 1988.

The Minister raised a number of issues that were to receive further discussion throughout the conference proceedings, including the need to determine an appropriate balance between the protection of privacy and the information needs of government and business, the place of privacy regulation in the private sector (in particular in relation to the consumer credit industry) and the need to develop a privacy "ethos" amongst those in positions of power and influence within organisational structures.

In recognition of the status of the conference as the first to be held in the southern hemisphere the opening day featured a lengthy session on privacy developments in the Asia Pacific region and featured speakers from Australia (both federal and state), New Zealand, Japan and Hong Kong.

Mr. Bruce Slane, the Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand, (appointed in April 1992) outlined recent developments in New Zealand. He noted that data-matching provisions had been enacted to allow for information matching between certain government departments and agencies subject to privacy safeguards. A draft Privacy of Information Bill (applying to both public and private sectors) remained under consideration. Unusually, the Privacy Commissioner has been asked by the New Zealand Minister of Justice to review submissions received on the Bill and to advise the Minister on the appropriate form and content for a revised Bill.

Privacy in telecommunications, in the health-care system and in the workplace were key areas of discussion at the conference.

The Commissioners' Working Group on Telecommunications and Media in its report canvassed problems relating to the secrecy of telecommunications and satellite communications. New technology is enabling increasingly sophisticated forms of telephone interception and remote sensing. Who, for example, is the "record-keeper/controller" of information that may be stored in the space segment of a satellite communications system? A common statement was issued by the Sydney conference which noted the important issues raised by the working groups and agreed to monitor technological and legal developments in the field of secrecy of telecommunications in order to protect the privacy of the individual against excessive surveillance.

In relation to health, the conference addressed the difficulties that surrounded the control of highly sensitive medical data. Topics discussed included: the use of memory chip or magnetic stripe cards for information storage, guidelines for regulating the handling of particular categories of sensitive information such as HIV/AIDS status; genetic privacy issues' and the compilation of national registers of health data for research purposes.

In relation to workplace privacy issues covered included: electronic surveillance and monitoring practices; drug testing and genetic screening of employees and potential employees; and the collection, use and disclosure of employment records.

Several sessions of the conference were also devoted to examining the way privacy relators themselves operate, and a most constructive exchange of views resulted.

The keynote addresses at the conference provided examples, from opposite sides of the world, of the types of difficulties with which privacy regulators are faced. On the one hand the federal Data Protection Commissioner of Germany spoke of the social stresses - and gains - that had flowed from the new laws which opened the files of the East German secret police (the Stasi) to public scrutiny. On the other hand the head of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption outlined his work in uncoverning, investigating and reporting on a massive and well-established network of unlawful information disclosures between government agencies, private investigators, financial institutions, including banks, and others.

A printed volume of the papers of the 14th conference has been produced and copies may be purchased from the Privacy Commissioner's Office (GPO Box 5218, Sydney, NSW, 2001 - telephone (02) 229 7600 - facsimile (02) 229 7666). Audio tapes fro the proceedings are also available. The 15th Conference will be held in Manchester, United Kingdom on 28-30 September 1993. The organising committee for the next conference can be contracted at the Office of the Data Protection Registrar, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 7AF, England - telephone (0625) 535777 - facsimile (0625) 524510.

Report by Kevin O'Connor, Privacy Commissioner, Australia.

Report on the CEC GD XIII Extended Legal Advisory Board Meeting at Luxembourg March 4, 1993

Note: This is a personal report. It reflects the personal views of the author and does not in any way commit the Commission of the European Communities, nor the organisation the author works for (GMD, the German National Research Centre for Computer Science).

The author also wishes to clarify that he is one of the authors of the PUBLAW studies mentioned in the following text, and therefore has a personal stake in these matters.

On March 4, 1993 the Directorate General XIII (Information Technologies and Industries, and Telecommunications) held an extended Legal Advisory Board meeting at Luxembourg. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the PUBLAW II report, and experiences in the member states with the synergy between the public and the private sector with regard to the commercialisation of public sector information.

The Legal Advisory Board (LAB) is a group of independent legal experts from EC member states, invited by DG XIII. Its purpose has been to make aware the legal circles in the member states of the Community aspects of the information market, so that the population in the member states will be made aware thereof; to assist the member states in reviewing legal studies concerning this subject area; to provide the Commission with the opportunity to receive and impart information concerning the legal aspects of the national and Community information markets; to provide the Commission with observations, proposals and advice concerning the harmonisation of law relating to the information market. Since 1987 the LAB has been formally established within the context of the Commission's IMPACT I and IMPACT II programs.

The IMPACT (Information Market Policy Actions) programs are Community programs which aim at the improvement of the EC Common Information Market.

The current program, IMPACT II, based on a Council decision of December 1991, runs till 1994 and has a volume of about 64 million ECUs (1 ECU approximates 1.25 US $).

Studies made in the context of LAB activities range from general legal surveys on the framework of the information market to subjects like liability, data protection (privacy), access to government information (freedom of information legislation), proof and electronic documents, to areas like confidentiality, legal aspects of computer security and computer crime.

A LIST of the studies made in the framework of the LAB, as well as the studies themselves (subject to stock limitations) can be obtained from:

CEC-DG XIII

Batiment Jean Monnet

L-2920 Luxembourg

Reference: LAB P Available Studies and Discussion Papers

The meeting on March 4 was an EXTENDED LAB meeting since representatives from member state governments active in the area of information dissemination and commercialisation as well as representatives from the information industries had been invited in addition to regular LAB members.

Among EC member states public sector organisations in the UK, France and the Netherlands seem to be the most active in developing commercialisation strategies.

The study presented at the meeting, PUBLAW II, had been prepared by a study team formed by the Policy Studies Institute, London (UK), the Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD), St. Augustin (Germany) and the Centre de Recherches en Informatique et Droit, Namur (Belgium). The study had looked at experiences in the member states with regard to the implementation of the EC Guidelines for improving the synergy between the public and private sectors in the information market, as well as experiences with governmental commercialisation policies in Canada (both federal level and QUEBEC) and the US (federal level only). While PUBLAW II focused on policy issues, the preceding study PUBLAW I had dealt with legal issues, like the impact of access rights, secrecy regulations, competition law, copyright law, data protection on the commercialisation of public sector information, and had analyzed some of the special sector legislation in this area like laws on car or company registers etc.

The PUBLAW II study concluded:

QUOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

An inescapable finding of the PUBLAW.2 investigation was that the overall level of awareness of the Guidelines among policy makers and market actors across the Community is currently far from optimal (...)
Since the distribution channels for the Guidelines (and other EC materials) appear to be limited, the Study Team recommended that the Commission should consider targeting the distribution of future policies to trade associations, such as Chambers of Commerce; to information industry associations; to line agencies who make information available to the private sector; as well as to policy-making agencies in each Member State.

(...) The reaction to the Guidelines has, on the whole, been very positive on both sides of the industry. In their current form they are felt to provide a useful framework for public-private synergy which is acceptable in all the Member States. Their universal acceptance as a broad policy document suggests that they should be left in their current state.

However, a series of supplementary actions might be considered by the Commission in the near future to address a number of concerns. In some Member States, for example, the Guidelines simply confirm and reinforce national policy (as in the case of the United Kingdom) or underline existing trends and practices within the public sector. In others, the information market has not yet evolved to the point where the Guidelines have an immediate and clear relevance - a key finding of the Study was that the stage of development of the information market and its supporting economic, human resource and technical infrastructure had considerable impact on the level of influence and acceptance of the CEC Guidelines.

More practical guidelines offering advice on the identification, collection and management of information in electronic form would be helpful in this regard. Similarly, guidance which offered examples of good practice on areas such as pricing and valuing information together with examples of success stories would be helpful in raising the profile of public-private synergy issues.

(...) Such is the complexity of these issues that additional mechanisms are needed, beyond the current Guidelines, to ensure that developments continue to proceed smoothly. Here, the Commission is faced with a number of options. One might be to elevate the status of the Guidelines by issuing a Directive. (...) There was a strong demand for the Guidelines to be supplemented by other activities, such as the establishment of forums where actors from both the public and private sectors could discuss such practical issues as pricing, contracts, and administrative procedures. A second area of activity where the CEC might play a valuable role would be for a Commission representative to work with the various pan-European committees involved at a sectoral or subject discipline level, for example statistics or geographical information. This would ensure co-ordination between the policy-making bodies at sectoral level and the Commission, and lead to better communication over public-private synergy issues and more informed decision-making for both parties. The most frequently cited requirement to enhance public-private synergy was for supplementary guidance to be issued on specific issues, such as clarification of pricing mechanisms or sector-based areas.

In the meeting these observations were confirmed by reactions from public sector and private sector representatives.

The spokesman of the European Information Industry Association introduced a proposal concerning a Draft Directive for a commercial right of access to public sector databases. Others pointed to the current discussion on the draft EC directive on copyright for databases which in its current format contains a clause on mandatory licensing of public sector data bases under certain conditions. Another proposal suggested a stronger integration of public sector/private sector Pinteraction in current and upcoming IMPACT II pilot projects, e.g. in the context of geographical information. A further proposal asked for Community action to encourage member states to provide inventories of their information resources.

Representatives of the Commission did not commit themselves at the meeting to any of these proposals.

PERSONAL COMMENT: In my view the Commission is in a politically difficult situation. On the one hand it is obvious that the information resources of the public sector, as the US example shows, are an important source for commercialisation activities which would further activate the European information market. Addressing this issue from the COMMERCIAL point of view is also well within the current mandate of the Commission. On the other hand the availability (and not only its commercial availability) of public sector information is a vital CITIZENRY(and public sector organisation) issue far beyond commercial issues in a Community where e.g. only very few member states have freedom of information legislation (Denmark, France, the Netherlands) Addressing this side of the issue the Commission may have some problems with its legal competence in this area as well as with political resistance from some member states. ONLY addressing this issue, however, from the COMMERCIAL view point seems frivolous in view of the importance of a greater transparency in EC member states and of the Community bodies themselves. With regard to the latter there seem to be activities on their way which aim at some improvement. With regard to the former, at least in area of environmental information, there is at least a EC directive (based on the EC competence for environmental issues) which will require member states to provide for such access in their national legislations.

Report by, Dr. Herbert Burkert, Information Policy Group, GMD-I8.IE, Postbox 1316, D-5205 St. Augustin 1, GERMANY -, Tel.: +49. 2241.14 33 26, Fax.: +49.221.37 34 78, E-MAIL: Herbert.Burkert@gmd.de

Australia
PRIVACY REGULATION - INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AUSTRALIAN IMPLICATIONS

There is increasing pressure world-wide for more extensive privacy regulation, arising from such international organisation as the European Community and the Council of Europe, from the demands of business and government for greater access to personal data, and from such technological develops as Caller ID and 'smart cards'. These issues, and the measures that regulators have adopted to deal with them, affect all business and public sector organisations that deal with personal information.

This one day Conference at UNSW focused on the key emerging privacy issues, explored how they are regulated around the world, and analysed the implications for Australian organisations. It brought together many of the world's leading privacy commentators, publishers and advocates, and representatives of international organisations, privacy regulators and business. The structure of the each four sessions of the conference was intended to balance international and Australian speakers.

The joint sponsors of the Conference were the Human Rights Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Privacy International (PI), the World Privacy and Data Protection Network, a non-government organisation linking privacy experts and advocates. The Conference programme committee, Graham Greenleaf and Siomon Davies, organised the Conference for PI in conjunction with the Continuing Legal Education Department at UNSW.

In Session 1, 'Locked out of Europe? Implications of the European Community Data Protection Directive', George Papapavlou, Secretary to the Legal Advisory Board, DGXIII, European Commission, opened with an up-to-the minute explanation of the Commission's revisions to the draft Directive, which had only been released in the previous week. Stewart Dresner, publisher of Privacy Laws and Business gave a detailed account of business reactions to the draft Directive, and gave examples of where attempts to provide contractual privacy protection for international data transfers had, on closer inspection, been ignored by the companies concerned. Joanne Cowley of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade outlined the Department's views on implications for Australia-EC trade, and Graham Greenleaf of the University of new South Wales argued that Australia should take a more positive approach to the Directive, and see both commercial and human rights advantages in lifting Australia's data protection standards.

Session 2 'The carrot or the stick? - Options for privacy regulation in the private sector' heard David Flaherty, Professor of Law and History, University of Western Ontario, argue that the most appealing current model for privacy regulation in the private sector is based on industry codes of conduct that are subordinate to, and compliant with, both general and sectorial privacy laws. Maureen Tangney of the New South Wales Privacy Committee detailed the sorry State of Australia's State privacy laws. Nigel Waters of the Commonwealth Privacy Commissioner's Office argued for a strategy to win greater business acceptance of privacy laws, based on emphasis on access and correction rights, an audit function, and an ability to award damages, and an avoidance of unrealistic requirements such as consents to disclosure. Bruce Slane, New Zealand Privacy Commissioner, commented on his desire to develop private sector standards without becoming a 'regulator'.

Session 3 saw the focus change to controls on the use of new technologies, 'Smart cards and smart networks'. Michael Pickering of AOTC argued the need for a consistent privacy legal regime for all organisations including users of telecommunications services, and explained the cautious approach to the introduction of calling line identification that AOTC is taking, with an emphasis on prior assessment of customer attitudes. Mark Rotenberg, Washington Director of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), argued that the long term economic value of a telecommunications network is diminished when privacy is not protected. Simon Davies, Director General, Privacy International warning of the potential for abuse of smart card in the health sector. Michael Walters, a payment system consultant, give a historical overview of the types of smart cards and their development, and argued that, properly used, they could enhance privacy protection. There was agreement among the speakers that security must not be confused with privacy, and 'pricity' was coined as a term of abuse.

The plaintive question 'Whose information is it anyway?' was the theme of Session 4, led by the Independent Commission Against Corruption's Roy Waldron who outlined ICAC's Report on Unauthorised Release of Government Information. Bruce Bargon of the Credit Reference Association supported attempts to prevent corrupt access to systems. Roger Clarke, Associate Professor of Information Systems at the ANU (and recent Computerworld Fellow for his privacy campaigns) followed with a vigorous analysis of exactly what are the steps in the data matching process, and where are the danger points. According to Clarke's comparative research, Australia and New Zealand lead the world in data matching.

Colin Bennett, Canadian political sciences, summed up the day with a call for more long term and comparative analysis of data protection developments, arguing that developments such as the EC Directive could only be understood as the culmination of a twenty year process of convergence of national policies.

The success of the Conference, which was fully enrolled with 70 attendees, was a significant event for Privacy International, which anticipates that it will be the first example of an annual PI-sponsored Conference held to coincide with the annual meeting of Data Protection and with Privacy Commissioners. The fourteenth such annual meeting was hosted by the Australian Privacy Commissioner in the week of the UNSW Conference. Eleven PI members attended the Commissioners' meeting as observers. To encourage the maximum exchange of ideas between Commissioners, PI members and others interested in privacy, there was one free registration at the UNSW Conference to each national data protection Commission or responsible government agency. A number of international officials took up the offer, and contributed to lively debates at the Conference.

Report by Graham Greenleaf, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales Faculty of Law, Sydney, 30th October, 1992.

Copies of the Conference Proceedings are available from Continuing Legal Education, Faculty of Law, University of NSW, Box 1 Kensington 2033

UNITED KINGDOM

The principal development in the academic UK computers and law world is probably the awarding of a major UK government grant to a consortium of most of the UK law schools, initiated by BILETA, the British and Irish Legal Education and Technology Association, and lead by the Universities of Warwick, Durham and Strathclyde. The funding is part of a major governmental thrust to expand the amount of teaching via computer assisted learning in universities. (Of course the subtext of this is the desire to promote increased numbers of students at no extra teaching cost - an aim which the members of BILETA do not endorse). The funding will be devoted to producing legal courseware which can be used in all UK law schools. It runs initially from October 1992. There will be English and Scottish branches, reflecting the difference in legal systems. The aim is to produce courseware for six full subjects out of the English core law courses over the projected three year life span of the project; the Scottish branch is to produce two full "modules: plus a number of units covering parts of other courses. The authoring software is currently being selected but the platform will be Windows and possible also DOS.

Another interesting development is the expansion of the UK market for computers and law journals. A few years ago there was a virtual vacuum. In the last year or so both he BILETA house journal and the journal of the Society of Computers and Law have upgraded to become interesting and regular journals; the former is now the Law Technology Journal (contact Moyra Butterworth, Law Technology Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL) and the latter has become Computers and Law (contact Ruth Baker, Administration Secretary, SCL 10 Hurle Crescent, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 2TA). However we are also seeing a dawn of more traditional academic and practitioner journals in the field. Next year the International Journal of Law and Information Technology will be launched from Oxford University Press; its general editors are Richard Susskind and Chris Millard and the Managing Editor will be Chris Reed of Queen Mary's College, London. This writer will be Reviews Editor. The remit of the journal will be both substantive IT law, with a commercial and international outlook, and Computer Applications in Law. Already off the presses is the much-delayed Law, Computers and Artificial Intelligence from Triangle Journals, PO Box 65, Wallingford, Oxforshire OX10 OYG, edited by Indira Carr now of the University of Exeter. This has a remit of exploring the fields of AI, law and philosophy (though apparently the second issue will contain a symposium on legal issues around Electronic Data Interchange).

Report by Lilian Edwards, Lecturer in Private Law, University of Edinburgh.

Below are a few reports which we have received regarding recent developments in particular countries. We welcome other reports/news/conference summaries etc. from readers in other areas.

SWEDEN/NORWAY

Sweden

In 1992, two doctorates in law were awarded at Stockholm University for studies in computers and law, both emanating from the Swedish Law and Informatics Research Institute chaired by Professor Peter Seipel.

The first was Cecilia Magnusson Sjoberg Rattsautomation (Legal Automation),[1] which discusses some of the legal implication of the introduction of computerised systems for decision making or support in public administration. She pays attention to the legal constraints for system development, the nature of a computer program for such systems in terms of public administrative law, and analyses the application of the rather extensive Swedish public administration procedures applied to such systems. The thesis is in Swedish, but there is a summary in English (page 529-547).

The second was Peter Wahlgren Automation of Legal Reasoning,[2] which is a thesis in the tradition of Richard Susskind, but based on the author's considerable experiences in building expert systems of his own. He also brings a flavour of Scandinavian realism to the discussion of the jurisprudential basis of knowledge based systems in law.

Norway

The Council of the University of Oslo decided summer 1992 to introduce a new master's degree from 1994 in "organisational and administrative informatics." This is to be an interfacultary degree, based on a bachelor's degree composed of social science, computer science and public law. The new degree will be under the administration of the Norwegian Research Centre for Computers and Law (which is a department of the Faculty of Law), and will emphasise legal knowledge representation, issues relating to large data bases and other legal and organisational issues relating to use of decision support systems in private and public administration.

Report by Jon Bing, Faculty of Law, University of Oslow.

North America
Second Internationl Conference on Substantive Technology in the Law School Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, July 30-August 1, 1992

If the next time this Conference is held, in Paris 1994, it is called "The Third International Conference on Using Information Technology in Law Teaching", then I won't have to explain to anyone what a substantive technology is - or, even worse, what a "non-substantive" one might be. Titles aside, this was an invaluable, informal, meeting over 80 of the most involved and influential law teachers involved in the use of information technology from around the world. The emphasis was on group discussions and informal demonstrations rather than formal papers, but that suited the subject matter. A number of invited presentations were, however, outstanding. Mickie Voges of Chicago-Kent demonstrated their superb Library Imaging System, whereby much of their library collection (particularly their famous international law holdings) is available by faxed image, or (within the law school and nearby) by high bandwidth image transmission. William Grave of the University of North Carolina gave a virtuoso demonstration of multi-media's potential for education and of the WAIS (wide area information server), a means of searching across the whole Internet for information.

Of the legal applications demonstrated, there was little on display that would startle Australian legal academics. There as a considerable interest in hypertext, perhaps the best teaching application being Hyperpad application by Bill Boyd of Arizona. The DataLex Workstation Software (in which I am involved) was the only Australia software demonstrated, and there was considerable interest shown in it, resulting in law faculty site licences at the University of Oslo and the University of Alberta, and an agreement with CALI (the co-operative Centre for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) to distribute the software in the USA.

Ron Staudt (Conference Chair) and Rosemary Shiels of Chicago-Kent Law School organised a smooth running and friendly conference. Their law school is close to hardware heaven. I lost count after seven computer labs, plug in ethernet connections in all teaching rooms for student laptops, the said laptops on loan from the library desk, and an auditorium with top class computer projection. However, there was little in the way of software of applications that seemed all that different from what Australian law schools are increasingly making available to students.

Report by Graham Greenleaf, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales Faculty of Law, Sydney.

EASTERN EUROPE
DATA BASE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA - ITS DEVELOPMENT TO THE INTELLIGENT INTERFACE

Generally

We are still far from an ideal information system, which could itself react to changes and provide the legal specialists a system to make a final choice from among many possibilities.

The opinion prevails that the development of artificial intelligence in law can only assist legal specialists, it cannot replace them. So advisory information systems, which do not have the ambition of resolving all cases but of resolving a large number of routine cases or simple questions, are more and more relevant.

The Database of Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia

The legal information system in the Slovene Constitutional Court has been in use since 1.1.1987.

There are a few main directions of this development:

- The building of the own database of the Constitutional Court (the constitutional - legal database);

- The co-operation in the building of the common constitutional database in the Council of Europe - this has meant that since 4.6.1991 the inclusion of the information system of the Constitutional Court in the international constitutional - legal information system of the Council of Europe;

- Use of domestic and foreign databases;

- The information system serves the Constitutional Court in its decision making;

The characteristics of the database of the Slovene Constitutional Court are:

- The database if factographic;

- It included the decisions and opinions taken by the Court, some theoretical materials written in the Court, and literature about constitutional justice, included either in he form of abstracts, or, mostly in the form of the original full t texts in Slovene and English (since 1991);

- The constitutional - legal database is a public database. It is linked with other databases, based on the automatic indexing method (the programme packages: STAIRS, ATLASS and TRIP are used in the different locations of the base), the base in which the selection of documents is made is left directly to the user.

The Existing Problems

The database includes almost 19,000 documents in full text, which, because of the size, causes problems for the user in reviewing and searching. So the increasing number of documents in the database does cause some difficulties. Because of this the intern and other uses of the database require special education.

The trainee users also have problems in searching in the database, especially since in the full texts of the database documents, the legal terminology for individual legal concepts of phenomena are not covered, or are inconsistent over the period of the construction of the base, despite the fact that the texts have been mainly the work of the same circle of legal specialists. This is a result of the transformation of the legal system in individual periods, as well as a subjective approach to the production of documents, which is impossible to avoid. So in searching the base, because of terminological differences, the user relies on one's own memory, intuition or capacity of association.

The Constitutional Court as a producer of the database has difficulties in the processing of the documents - it has to take care about concrete legal terms - on which base the same documents can later be found in the database.

The particular problem for the producer and for all categories of users is the programme package STAIRS; this is a relatively old programme and requires special knowledge.

Interface as a possibility to solve the researching problems

In view of the abovementioned problems, the need has arisen for the development of a user friendly interface which would alleviate work with the database and improve the quality of searching through it.

After considering many possibilities the choice was made for the intelligent interface; this can only help the users, but not replace them. In practice, the lawyer as user is frequently overburdened with information and is mainly interested in extracting information on relevant disputed questions in connection with a concrete case. The provision of legal information on the level of hypertext can only assist the user, with the aid of a computer, to find more effectively a specific legal opinion which that person can follow.

First attempts with an intelligent interface

In the initial phase of development; (first attempts were made in March 1993) the results came up to our expectations.

At first we prepared the terminological analysis of the database and studied the foreign experiences.

The legal information system in other words has followed research according to its own or other domestic and foreign bases throughout its long practice, whereby in the design of the base and its development, it adapts all the time to appropriate foreign legal information systems and suitable international standards.

It is important that since 1989 the Legal Information Centre of the Constitution Court has had the direct opportunity to become acquainted with the effectiveness of an intelligent interface, built into the German legal information system (JURIS).

Construction of the interface

Construction of the interface has many aims:

- To simplify the searching, to improve the effectiveness and usefulness of them and to improve the commercial attractiveness of the system;

- To extend the application to other databases in the Slovene legal information system.

The content of the project is as follows:

- For the creation of the Slovene legal vocabulary (in the field of constitutional justice); and the production of the dictionary of legal concepts and their synonyms, we observed the existing base of Constitutional Court documents. In the framework of the project, legal concepts from the existing base of the Slovene legal information system have been collected in the hitherto legal language. We have not to date had such a dictionary or lexicon of legal concepts. The dictionary will be available for use either in a central computer with the use of an appropriate programme package (eg, STAIRS) or in local - users' personal computers.

- The building of interface with language and translator for the STAIRS programme, for which the existing database is used;

- The creation of relations between the concrete legal terms (words); this covers not only synonyms, but also the hierarchicaly relations between the legal terms, combined with the concrete articles from the constitution or from the laws;

- The project implements not only the mentioned vocabulary (dictionary); but the user also can create one's own personal dictionary.

The usefulness of the project is as follows:

- For the users of the database, a simpler system.

- For the producer of the database - he/she can process the document without use of the same terms;

- The applicative significance for other legal databases in the Slovene legal information system (National Assembly, Supreme Court, regular courts, the government and its entire administrative structure, the senate for violations) located in the Government Information Centre of the Republic of Slovenia.

The work with the interface will be as follows:

- The user will describe a question in ordinary (Slovene) legal language to the interface;

- The interface will extract from these questions the relevant legal concepts and logical relations between the concepts and concrete cases;

- The user can review and correct the list of concepts and will maintain an active role in searching;

- From this programme the interface will request appropriate documents on the basis of the list of concepts, as stated by the logical operator;

- On this basis the user will get from the database all documents, which relate to the field of enquiry (legal practice, legislation and literature).

After testing in the Constitution Court, a final version of the interface will be produced, which will begin in regular use in September 1993. This is naturally only the first step of the whole project, who will be developed during the longer period.

References (in Slovene)

1. Project: Extending the legal information system with intelligent search (in Slovene), Constitutional Court - Jozef Stefan Institute - Faculty of Law - Ministry of Justice and Administration RS, Ljubljana, 24.11.1992.

2. Dr. Arne Mavcic, On applications in the field of databases and expert systems, Pravna praksa, no 17/90, p 23.

3. Dr. ArneMavcic, Building an expert system in the field of activities of the Constitutional Court, Facunalnik in pravo, no 2/91, p VI.

4. Dr. Arne Mavcic, On artificial intelligence and law, Pravna praksa, no 14/91, p 18.

5. Dr. Arne Mavcic, Experience of the legal information centre of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia in constructing and using domestic databases and in supplementing them with foreign databases with legal content, Pravosodni bilten, no 1/91, p 13.

6. Dr. Arne Mavcic, Communication data of the legal information system through the computer exchange of data, Report of the Council on the Computer Exchange of Data in Public Administration, Ljubljana, 17/3-1992.

Report by Dr. Arne Mavcic.

NEXT SECTION:

BOOK REVIEWS


[1] Nordstet, Stockholm 1992 - ISBN 91-38-50122-8.

[2] Kluwer, Computer/Law series, Deventer 1992 - ISBN 90-6544-661-5.


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