Browsing case-law: An application of the Carneades argumentation system

This paper presents an application of the Carneades Argumentation System to case-law. The application relies on a set of ontologies - representing the core and domain concepts of a restricted legal field, the law of contracts - and a collection of precedents taken from Italian courts of different grades. The knowledge base represents the starting point for the construction of rules representing laws and precedents which, in turn, are responsible for the argumentative reasoning. The system reconstructs the legal interpretations performed by the judge, presenting its reasoning path and suggesting possible different or divergent interpretation in the light of relevant code- and case-law.