Abstract
Work on network theory and the law has become increasingly popular over the past decade. A common feature of this work is how scholars approach the law as a matter of information. By distinguishing three different levels of analysis on legal information “as” reality, “about” reality, and “for” reality, this paper restricts the focus of the analysis to the law conceived as a set of rules or instructions for the determination of other informational objects, i.e. legal information for reality. The aim is to stress that network theory can be fruitful either as a support for the deliberation and decisions made by legislators and policy makers, or as a support for scholars and experts about what should be deemed as legally relevant. Any approach that scarcely debates, or simply ignores this facet of legal information, would simply persist in doing so at its own risk.
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Notes
- 1.
This is not to say, of course, that such a work does not exist yet. Consider Ashley et al. (2014): here, the network diagrams serve as visual indexes into a legal information database enabling users, such as public health officials working in field offices, to answer such questions as, “What regulations establish communications links between government public health agencies and hospitals?” (op. cit., abstract).
- 2.
Suffice it to mention that, on 22 September 1988, Italy adopted a new code of criminal procedure. It was a case of legal transplant, according to the formula of Watson (1993), since the aim was to substitute the previous inquisitorial system with an adversarial system, typical of the common law tradition. Yet, a number of the new provisions on the role of the parties and their powers, on the notion of procedural truth, etc., contrasted with some principles of the Italian constitution and the legal culture of this country. Our network analysis casts light on this rejection in a twofold way, that is, by pinpointing the hubs of the case law that show the fields of the system under pressure, and how the latter evolves and varies throughout the decades (Agnoloni and Pagallo 2014).
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Pagallo, U. (2019). Network Theory and Legal Information “for” Reality: A Triple Support for Deliberation, Decision Making, and Legal Expertise. In: Boulet, R., Lajaunie, C., Mazzega, P. (eds) Law, Public Policies and Complex Systems: Networks in Action. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 42. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11506-7_13
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