Statutory Interpretation

Statutory interpretation involves the reconstruction of the meaning of a legal statement when it cannot be considered as accepted or granted. This phenomenon needs to be considered not only from the legal and linguistic perspective, but also from the argumentative one - which focuses on the strategies for defending a controversial or doubtful viewpoint. This book draws upon linguistics, legal theory, computing, and dialectics to present an argumentation-based approach to statutory interpretation. By translating and summarizing the existing legal interpretative canons into eleven patterns of natural arguments - called argumentation schemes - the authors offer a system of argumentation strategies for developing, defending, assessing, and attacking an interpretation. Illustrated through major cases from both common and civil law, this methodology is summarized in diagrams and maps for application to computer sciences. These visuals help make the structures, strategies, and vulnerabilities of legal reasoning accessible to both legal professionals and laypeople.

'The authors do not assume extensive prior knowledge of the five varied disciplines that the work integrates, defining key concepts as needed and pointing out relevant areas of controversy in the literature … This work will be of primary interest to researchers in artificial intelligence and law, statutory interpretation, argumentation theory, and pragmatics.' Emily Da Silva, Canadian Law Library Review

Douglas Walton is a world-renowned scholar in the field of argumentation. Over his career, he authored or co-authored over fifty books and over 400 refereed journal articles. His work is interdisciplinary in style and is regarded by scholars and professionals as seminal in the field. Fabrizio Macagno is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Communication, Instituto de Filosofia da Nova (FCSH, NOVA). He has published several papers and books on definition, emotive language, presupposition, argumentation schemes, and dialogue theory, including Argumentation Schemes (Cambridge, 2008). He has also worked as a consultant in forensic linguistics at the Martinez and Novebaci Law Firm. Giovanni Sartor is Professor in Legal Informatics at the University of Bologna and Professor in Legal Informatics and Legal Theory at the European University Institute, Florence. He holds an ERC-advanced grant (2018) for the project Compulaw, and has published widely in legal philosophy, computational logic, legislation technique, and computer law. Professor Sartor is co-director of the Artificial Intelligence and Law Journal and co-editor of the Ratio Juris Journal.