Application of Case-Based Reasoning in Legal Case Management: An Experiment with Ethiopian Labor Law Cases
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2014-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The labor law domain is an important selection area in AI that is a field to make a machine
(computer) simulate human like behavior to enhance consistency, reliable and timely decision
making. KBS is one of the major subfield of AI that uses expert (knowledge) to solve a specific
problem. CBR is one of the important applications of AI and/or KBS for manipulating previous
knowledge (cases) in different areas. It is a problem solving paradigm that uses earlier
experiences to solve new problems and is useful to humans when knowledge is incomplete and/or
evidence is sparse in the domain of law. Thus, major goal of this study is to design a prototype
application of case based reasoning for legal case management in the domain of Ethiopian labor
law context at the Federal Supreme Court. Fifty legal texts were selected through document
review and discussions from FSCE. These texts then are organized in attribute-values dimension
and converted to plain text file for building case base. Attributes are represented using the CBR
developmental tool jcolibri framework for implementing the four “Re’s” of CBR application
tasks (Retrieve, Reuse, Revise and Retain). The performance of the prototype system is evaluated
using the statistical analysis (precision and recall) and user acceptance (satisfaction)
techniques. Thus, the system has a recall of 71% and precision of 86% performance. Moreover,
the system was accepted by domain experts 86% of the time.
It is concluded that the prototype system is applicable in judicial application to provide fast and
quality services. However, general knowledge explanations are lacked and major challenges in
CBR for this study when similar cases are not in the case base to solve a problem. So,
investigating a prototype system in law domain with integration of CBR and RBR approaches
with explanation facility for future investigation is important. Moreover, managing any types of
law in a separate section might need more resources. So, an “all in one” CBR applications for
the three law parts (criminal, labor and civil laws) is recommended to manage large cases and
reduce the burdens.
Keywords: Case-based Reasoning (CBR), Legal Case Management, Labor Law
Description
Keywords
Case-based Reasoning, (CBR), Legal Case Management, Labor Law