JuDDGES (Judicial Decision Data Gathering, Encoding and Sharing)

L’objectif du projet JuDDGES est d’exploiter les technologies de pointe en matière de traitement du langage naturel afin de fournir aux chercheurs juristes, de nouveaux logiciels et outils ouverts permettant une capacité de méta-annotation étendue, flexible et continue (à la fois automatisée et faisant appel à des experts du domaine). Cette capacité est appliquée aux dossiers juridiques et aux jugements des tribunaux pénaux, tenant compte de constitutions juridiques variées (Pologne, Angleterre et Pays de Galles).

L’objectif du projet consiste donc à lever les obstacles liés aux ressources, à la langue, aux données et à l’hétérogénéité des formats qui entravent actuellement la recherche sur la prise de décision judiciaire. En permettant l’ouverture de ces outils et de cette ressource de données ouverts, les chercheurs seront en mesure de développer et de tester empiriquement les théories de la prise de décision judiciaire et d’aborder les questions relatives à la pratique et politique judiciaires. Les chercheurs des institutions (juridiques) publiques peuvent également réutiliser les données. L’application de la science ouverte comble ainsi une lacune importante dans le domaine de la recherche juridique empirique, qui a tardé à adopter les principes d’ouverture de la science. L’ensemble de données et d’outils pan-nationaux annotés qui en résultera constituera le référentiel de recherche juridique ouvert et réutilisable le plus important et le plus complet d’Europe pour la recherche sur le processus décisionnel judiciaire.

Recrutements sur le projet :

Appel Candidatures Post Doc CHIST ERA JuDDGES

Appel Candidatures Ingénieur Recherche Elico UCBL CHIST ERA JuDDGES 

English Version

The overall goal of the JuDDGES project is to harness state-of-the-art Natural Language Processing & Human-In-The-Loop technologies to provide legal researchers with new Open software and tools that enable extensive, flexible and on-going meta-annotation capability (both automated and employing domain experts in-the-loop). This capability is applied to legal records/judgments from criminal courts across jurisdictions with varied legal constitutions (Poland, England & Wales).

We hence seek to dissolve barriers of resources, language, data & format inhomogeneity that currently impede research on judicial decision making. In making this new software, tools and data resource open on a public repository, researchers will be empowered to develop and empirically test theories of judicial decision making and address judicial policy and practice-relevant questions. Researchers from public (legal) institutions can also reuse the data for their purposes. The application of Open Science hence also rectifies a substantial gap in the empirical legal research domain that has been slow in adopting Open Science principles. The resulting annotated pan-national dataset & toolset will constitute the largest and most comprehensive open and reusable legal research repository in Europe for research on judicial decision-making.

This project will develop an AI-based solution (tool) that can be used by researchers to examine unstructured textual data in court records and/or written legal judgments. In doing so, we will create the largest extant pan-national legal dataset in Europe. The tool would allow researchers to access and progressively enrich large, detailed, and representative legal samples of data (starting from what we have made available) in a resource- and cost-effective as well as time-efficient way. The datasets so produced and adjusted to Open Science principles and openly available from a trusted data repository, will also be accessible to others for re-use both within and across legal jurisdictions, including the unexpected researcher/user (e.g., from legal institutions). Indeed, the open software & Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) tools that the project will provide will enable non-AI-specialist ECR researchers to interrogate judicial decision data and identify novel lines of research interrogation. The tool and resultant data will thus expand methodological horizons. In the long-term, our project will contribute to a scientific, evidence-based approach to judicial policy and practice in the courts. The project embodies and exemplifies the principles enshrined within Horizon Europe initiatives on open research data, applying Open Science principles and the utilisation of Open Infrastructures.

PostDoc Call for Application – CHIST ERA JuDDGES 2024