Systematization of legal meta-inference

Abstract

'Legal meta-inference' is legal inference for controlling legal inference. The legal knowledge is constantly increasing with time and a conclusion from the knowledge at a former time might contradict a conclusion from the knowledge at a later time. These seeming incompleteness of legal knowledge is remedied by appealing to legal meta-inferences in legal practice. Therefore, in order to build a legal knowledge-base system, it is necessary to clarify the structure of the legal meta-inference and systematize it, and to construct it on that basis. This study shows, in examples of legal reasoning, what legal meta-inference is, clarifies the knowledge structure of the legal meta-inference in terms of legal meta-rules which regulate the validity of legal rules, and establishes the way to systematize legal reasoning which entails the legal meta-inference, formalizing the meta-inference as logical deductive reasoning. This paper concludes with suggestions for constructing method of a knowledge-base system of law, where knowledge increases constantly with time.