Abstract
In this paper we present the results of a study to see whether the number of citations to cases is an indication of the relevance and authority of these cases in the Dutch legal system. Fowler e.a. have shown such results for the US common law system, but given the different status of case law in continental tradition it is not clear whether this will hold in the Netherlands. Moreover, we introduce an alternative way to validate the results using selections made by human experts for legal education. We discuss the results and conclude that network analysis of cases is a useful tool for legal research.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Dworkin, D.: Taking rights seriously. Harvard University Press, USA (1978)
Egghe, L., Rousseau, R.: Introduction to Informetrics. Elsevier, Amsterdam (1990)
Fowler, J.H., Jeon, S.: The authority of Supreme Court precedent. Social Networks 30, 16–30 (2008)
Fowler, J.H., Johnson, T.R., Spriggs II, J.F., Jeon, S., Wahlbeck, P.J.: Network Analysis and the Law: Measuring the Legal Importance of Supreme Court Precedents. Political Analysis 15(3), 324–346 (2006)
Franx, J.K.: De Hoge Raad: voorgaan, doorgaan of omgaan. Kluwer, Deventer (1994)
Jaffe, A., Trajtenberg, M.: Patents, Citations and Innovations: A Window on the Knowledge Economy. MIT Press, Cambridge (2002)
de Maat, E., Winkels, R., Van Engers, T.: Automated Detection of Reference Structures in Law. In: van Engers, T. (ed.) The Nineteenth Annual Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems, JURIX 2006, pp. 41–50. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2006)
Mazzega, P., Bourcier, D., Boulet, R.: The network of French legal codes. In: ICAIL 2009, pp. 236–237. ACM (2009)
de Mey, J.M.: Toegang tot rechterlijke uitspraken. Rapport van de VMC-studiecommissie Openbaarheid van rechtspraak, Mediaforum (April 2006) (in Dutch)
van Oppijnen, M.: A Public Index of Case Law References –the End of Multiple and Complex Citations Source. In: Proceeding of the 2006 Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems, JURIX 2006. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, vol. 152. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2006)
Zhang, P., Koppaka, L.: Semantics-based legal citation network. In: ICAIL 2007, pp. 123–130. ACM (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Winkels, R., de Ruyter, J. (2012). Survival of the Fittest: Network Analysis of Dutch Supreme Court Cases. In: Palmirani, M., Pagallo, U., Casanovas, P., Sartor, G. (eds) AI Approaches to the Complexity of Legal Systems. Models and Ethical Challenges for Legal Systems, Legal Language and Legal Ontologies, Argumentation and Software Agents. AICOL 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7639. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35731-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35731-2_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35730-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35731-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)